A Guide to Dealing With Perfection
by Rhianwen
Summary: It is an old tale, oft told. New girl takes over old farm. Townspeople take notice. Crops are planted. Cows are milked. Chickens are picked up. Chickens are put over there. Hearts are won. Minds are lost. MFoMT fic
1. Chapter 1

A Guide to Dealing with Perfection

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Summary: It is an old tale, oft told. New girl takes over old farm. Townspeople take notice. Crops are planted. Cows are milked. Chickens are picked up. Chickens are put over there. Hearts are won. Minds are lost.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon. Heck, I don't even own a farm.

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In the beginning, there was a farm. In that farm, one could argue about which came first: the chicken or the egg, but that was, and remains, immaterial, as it was the farm that came first, and thus neither.

Within this farm dwelt a farmer of such great farming skill, such natural gift for planting, and watering, and milking, and cow-scrubbing, and picking up of chickens and putting over there, that the Harvest Goddess herself did smile upon this farmer and grant him great peace and prosperity.

Unfortunately, the great farmer loved by the Harvest Goddess and the community alike had a young apprentice. He loved his apprentice like a son, and taught him everything he knew of watering and milking and cow-scrubbing and even of the picking up of chickens and of the putting of those chickens over there. His apprentice learned, biding his time until the day was right.

And then he killed his master in his sleep, picking up a chicken, and putting it over there. Directly on the sleeping master's face. The master, naturally, smothered, and by the time he woke up, he was dead, and thus did not.

From that day, the farm fell into chaos and corruption. Caring neither for the wellbeing of his animals nor for the little hearts that came out of their heads when they were happy, the cruel apprentice went forth and milked not his cows, but milked instead his horse; sheared not his sheep, but instead sheared his chickens; watered not his crops, but instead his dog. Truly, he was a farmer of unparalleled incompetence.

And of unparalleled evil. For once the apprentice had learned to milk the cows, shear the sheep, water the crops, and generally ignore the dog, he went immediately to work over-exploiting the land that his master had so lovingly cultivated; through the use of chemicals neither found in nor intended for the soil, he reaped far more than he sowed. He used pesticides and disregarded the truth of a cosmology in which the insects that he sought to eliminate had a vital role to play in the web of life. He crammed too many chickens in the coop, heedless not of their frantic squawking but only of the quantity of eggs. He fed not to his cows the fodder that was good, but rather hormones to make them produce more milk.

Regrettably, the milk was as sour as his disposition, and the eggs as black as his soul.

Into the river he did throw rocks and twigs and rusty cans and boots of all shape and size. And the good people of Mineral Town didst raise their voices in a mighty chorus, and unto the corrupt farmer they did say, "Stop that, you bastard!"

The Harvest Goddess did not smile upon this man, but instead glared and pouted most pointedly.

And, conferring with her pals over in Valhalla, did summon forth a meteor to strike down the evil man.

For seven days and seven nights did fire rain down from the sky upon the farm. The good gentle peoples of Mineral Town, who had previously enjoyed the goods of the farm in its glory days, but were now enjoying the entertainment value, did watch in fascination and great munching of popcorn.

The Harvest Goddess was not unkind to the poor, abused animals, and had seen to their previous departure before the smiting of the farm that had so fully turned from the ways of good stewardship and ethical treatment of the environment. She had appeared to one special cow in a dream, and inspired him to build for himself and the other slaves of the corrupt man a giant boat with which to sail to freedom. Then, realizing that there was no body of water big enough to hold it, she sent instead to him the image of a great truck.

And the cow's name was Mooses.

And so it was written, and so it was done.

Years passed. Spring turned to Autumn, as Summer had buggered off somewhere that year.

Eventually, the farm did pass into the hands of another good farmer. But sadly, he died.

And lo, left he the farm to no one in particular, and so did the Retail Agent take out an ad in a retail magazine, padding the truth of the farm's deteriorated state only slightly to drum up greater interest.

Seven days passed, and seven nights.

And on the eighth day, the ad was answered.

And so begins our story.

Sort of.

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The sun shone brightly down upon the gentle folk of Mineral Town. The sky was cloudless and bluer than the bluest depths of…something really, really blue. The birds were singing merrily in the treetops, aside from the ones caught in peoples' chimneys, who were squawking rather frantically.

"Help! Let us out!" they cried, unfortunately in their native tongue of Bird, so that none save the chickens that were not there could have understood them.

The scent of fresh flowers wafted from the fields, quite indifferent of the plight of the birds, to fill all who caught a whiff of its gentle fragrance with the joy of being alive.

The day was Spring the 2nd, a day that would change the lives of the sleepy, uneventful Town and its people forever.

For it was on this day that the Miracle Cow Potion administered to Barley's youngest cow at long last took effect, and she began craving ice cream and waffles instead of fodder, Good, Bad, or Mediocre.

On this day that Ellen finished at longer last the maternity sweater she had been knitting for the last three years for expectant bovine mother.

On this day that Saibara finally made it down to the 255th level of the Spring Mine, and that Gray realized he was stronger than he had ever imagined when he had been forced to carry his unconscious, exhausted grandfather up two-hundred fifty-five flights of narrow and rickety stairs.

On this day that Mary's new book had arrived, and she had spent a joyous afternoon waltzing it about her room.

On this day that Elli finally found a use for her multitudes of failed cooking attempts and all those medicines that no one ever bought. These, she had named the Elixir of Life, and though they liked the initials, the folks of Mineral Town thought this name was slightly pretentious, and instead called them Elli Leaves. This led Elli to pout at great length, but the folks of Mineral Town cared not for a pouting Elli, aside from the Doctor, who found his life made much more difficult by an angry female.

On this day that Won finally beat Zack in a heated game of Solitare, thus winning a large sum of money and Zack's eternal hatred.

It was also a day of great tragedy.

May's teddy bear fell in the mud, and it was to be two whole days before it was sufficiently washed and dried to be cuddled once more.

Elli finally noticed that knothole in the wall between her room and the Doctor's and plugged it up with an old rag, much to his disappointment. She would later unplug it again, when it occurred to her that the hole did, in fact, work both ways, and his bottom was an exceedingly nice one, worthy of much ogling and just a hint of drooling.

Manna was stricken down by laryngitis, and was ordered by the Doctor not to speak for the next three days, lest she do irreparable damage to something. Possibly someone's reputation.

Also, a new girl arrived in Mineral Town to take control of the old abandoned farm.

But enough about her, as just as Mayor Thomas had rushed back into town to spread word of their new neighbour, he had chanced to look down at the sidewalk, only to see something bright and shiny glinting back up at him.

"Ooh! A penny!" he exclaimed in delight, stooping to pick it up.

He hurried home, clutching tightly in his moist, chubby hand his newly claimed prize.

"Harris! I found a penny!" he announced proudly as he burst through the door.

"That's wonderful, Dad," Harris said amiably, forcing a smile.

"I wonder what I should spend it on!"

"About a hundredth of a vegetable," the uniformed, impressively nosed man said, rooting about in his pocket. "Here; you can have the stem of my apple."

Thomas took the stem and munched happily away, before frowning.

"I should have saved that penny. After all," he continued, "a penny saved is a penny earned! But a penny spent on an apple stem is a penny squandered."

Harris sighed.

"Right, Dad."

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"Elli?"

The little brunette seated at the front desk of the clinic started slightly at this polite interruption from behind her, and then sighed and rubbed her forehead wearily.

"No, Doctor, there haven't been any last-minute appointments scheduled for right now."

Coming around to the side of her desk, the Doctor pouted.

"Well…how about sudden last-minute emergencies?"

"None of those either," Elli replied, smiling a rather forced sympathetic smile.

"Oh," he sighed sadly. "Why is it so slow today? Doesn't anyone in this town get sick anymore?"

"Doctor, Mondays are always a little slow," she said, exasperated. "Lillia was here for her medicine yesterday, and Jeff doesn't usually have enough time to work himself into a panic over the mysterious bump on his elbow until Tuesday. There's really nothing you can do about it, unless you want to start sneaking arsenic into people's food to drum up some business. Um, Doctor?" she finished a little warily as she noticed his eyes fixed on her, narrowing slightly in consideration.

"You know, Elli, you look a little pale," he said, voice filled with worry. "I think a check-up might be in order."

"I just had one!" she exclaimed, bordering on an impatient whine.

"You can't be too careful with your health."

"An hour ago!"

"A lot can change in an hour, Elli," he said, very seriously.

"Doctor, why don't you just go…have a game of Solitaire or something?"

"I hate Solitaire. I always lose."

"Then draw a picture!"

"I don't like drawing. People always make fun of my stick-men."

"Then go back to your desk, lean back in your chair, and count the ceiling tiles!" Elli suggested, fraying patience snapping completely. "I don't care what you do, as long as you leave me alone to some work done!"

The Doctor blinked.

"You seem a little out-of-sorts," he said, continuing to watch her carefully. "That can be the first sign of a serious illness."

It took less than a second for Elli to shoot up out of her chair, plant her hands firmly in the center of the man's back, and push him toward the other side of the divider.

"Go!" she barked.

Once he was safely counting ceiling tiles, she dropped back into her chair with a long sigh.

"Finally! Now," she continued, carefully examining the matters of gravest importance spread over her desk, "where was I?"

Another moment of deep concentration passed, and then she brightened.

"Oh, that's right! Black seven on the red eight."

And all was sunshine again. But soon enough, the game had been won, the cards reshuffled and put away.

Elli pouted.

"I'm bored."

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"Mary!" Gray called, delighted, as he caught sight of the pretty, bespectacled object of his affections hurrying past, clutching a small brown paper parcel.

He let go of the doorknob of the blacksmith shop thingy, and jogged after her.

"Mary?" he called again, frowning when she barely glanced his way, and falling into step beside her. He eyed the bundle in her hands. "What've you got there?"

He reached for it, and time seemed to slow as her head whipped around as a furious snarl filled the air…

Gray wondered dimly when Mary had grown claws like that as he flew, stunned, backwards into a nearby fence.

"Okay," he agreed shakily before promptly losing consciousness. "I don't need to see."

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Stu grinned and waved as the little dark-haired girl approached the fence outside the church.

"Hi, May!"

"Hi, Stu," May greeted despondently, also returning Carter's gently beaming smile with a tiny, sad one.

"What's wrong?" Stu asked, blinking.

"My teddy's in the wash," the little girl sighed.

"Yeah, I heard about that," Stu said wisely. "Manna came to see Grandma earlier." Then he brightened. "But one of your Grandpa's cows is going to have a little baby soon!"

"That's the other problem!" May wailed. "Grandpa said I could have some ice cream with lunch today, but when he went to get it, we were all out, because we had to give it all to the cow to make her stop crying!"

"Ah, I suppose even cows have hormonal crying jags," Carter said, expression sober but eyes dancing. "Well, never mind that, May. I'll make you both a treat."

May brightened.

"Okay," she agreed, taking Carter's hand as Stu took his other. "But if Mabel comes and eats it, I'm gonna be really mad!"

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"We need to see the doctor!" Saibara called out as he and Mary dragged a barely-conscious, bleeding Gray into the clinic.

"Oh, no! What happened?" Elli exclaimed worriedly, up from her desk in a second.

"I…I don't know," Mary replied in a wobbly voice, gulping back a sob. "He went for my new book, and then everything turned red, and the next thing I knew, the fence was broken and Gray was afraid to come near me, and he was bleeding everywhere, and…"

"It's alright, Mary," Saibara said, surprisingly gentle, patting her soothingly with the hand not busily keeping his grandson from toppling unceremoniously to the floor. "We all know you're protective of your books; Gray just forgot."

"I don't want the book! I swear, I don't want the book! I was just trying to…grab a feel! Yeah, that's it!" Gray said unsteadily, cowering back against his grandfather.

"Doctor!" Elli was meanwhile calling, trotting towards the other side of the divider. "I think we have a bit of an emergency!"

"Emergency!" the Doctor exclaimed, bolting towards her, his paddle ball falling, forgotten, to the floor. "Finally!"

As his nurse's bewildered and slightly reproachful expression sunk into his boredom-addled mind, he cleared his throat.

"Er, that is, what exactly happened?"

"Well, I think Gray tried to take Mary's book, and she roughed him up. Doctor!" she added reproachfully. "It's not funny! I think she really did a number on him!"

The Doctor stopped snickering with some difficulty, and forced his expression back into its usual deadpan.

"Of course. Well, send him in."

The second Elli's back was turned, he dissolved into soundless laughter again, immediately composing himself when heavy, laboured footsteps reached his ears.

"Hello, Gray," he greeted, helping the young man to the cot. "Now, why don't you tell me what happened."

"Girls are scary," Gray informed him very solemnly.

The Doctor was on the verge of suggesting dryly that a woman only had the power to be as terrifying as a man let them, when a broken wail drifted from the waiting room.

"I hadn't even read it yet!"

Alright, so maybe Gray had a point. Withdrawing gauze and iodine from his cabinets, the Doctor made a mental note to buy his decidedly female roommate a present sometime in the near future.

Couldn't hurt to stay on her good side, after all.

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It was much later that evening when Sakura Hyacinthia Roseblossom Crystal Lythia Sunshine Moondancer McPretty (more commonly known to the rest of the world as Mary Sue, although she had no idea why – there were no Marys OR Sues in her name) dropped exhaustedly to the little bed in the corner of her new home.

There was nothing like a good night's sleep, well earned by a day of hard labour.

And a successful day it had been.

Over the course of the morning and afternoon, she had not only managed to clear her entire massive field of twigs, rocks, boulders, and stumps – clearly, when the Mayor had told her that breaking a stump with her current axe and a boulder with her current hammer was impossible, he had meant "impossible for _other_ people" – but had also managed to make friends with all the cute little creatures of the forest! She had thus acquired not only an adorable cuddly little puppy that loved her unconditionally already, but also a pet bunny, a pet monkey, and a snake that was just scary enough to look cool, but still as pretty as any pet of _hers_ was required to be.

She ran a faintly, aesthetically scarred hand through her iridescently shining golden hair and closed her eyes of brightest cerulean blue.

It wasn't easy, being this gorgeous. Her iridescent hair and brightest cerulean eyes glowed in the dark and kept her awake all night.

Downright annoying, really, when she was this tired.

Five minutes later, head wrapped in a towel and eyes obscured by sunglasses, she climbed back into bed.

It had just been too bad that she hadn't had time to go meet any of the locals today.

But tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go introduce herself.

She was fairly certain that she would be the most exciting thing to happen to these stuffy, uneventful people in ages.

After all, what could possibly happen in a one-horse town (the one horse, naturally, belonging to her after it had wandered onto her property and begged her in a series of neighs and whinnies to adopt it) like this?

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End Notes: Hehe! I'm having way too much fun with this one. Okay, so maybe everyone's out of character, and maybe the writing's really bad, and maybe there's no plot worth speaking of, and maybe the introduction was way too much, and…geez, _why_ do I like this one again:P


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

"Hey, Karen?"

"Yeah, Rick?"

"I hate Kai."

"That's nice, Rick. I like beer."

"Yeah, beer is good. But Kai is a troublemaker."

"Wine is good, too."

"Yup. Wine is nice. So are Spa Eggs. But you know what sucks?"

"Kai?"

Rick beamed.

"No one understands me like you, Karen. Have some popcorn."

Karen's eyes grew misty, and her cheeks grew pink.

"Aw, Rick, I knew there was a reason I sit here with you every morning."

Sakura Hyacinthia Roseblossom Crystal Lythia Sunshine Moondancer McPretty shook her head as she hurried past the supermarket, pointedly ignoring the pair on the bench. What a couple of weirdoes.

Nevertheless, if they were going to start happily adoring her, she would probably have to speak to them at some point. Sakura was a girl of depth and character, with a sensitive disposition and a craving for love and affection, and disliked being adored based solely on her immense physical beauty. As nice as that could be, it just felt _shallow_.

And so, coming to a halt, she back-pedalled until she was standing before the bench, and turned to smile cheerfully at the two young people.

"Hi there! My name is Sakura Hyacinthia Roseblossom Crystal Lythia Sunshine Moondancer McPretty, and I'm new in town."

Karen looked at Rick.

Rick looked at Karen.

Karen ate some popcorn and washed it down with a bottle of wine.

Rick pontificated his hatred for Kai just a little more.

Finally…

"You got a nickname?" Karen asked flatly.

"Well, lots of people call me Mary Sue," the little blonde replied gravely. "But I don't really know why."

"Uh…could we just call you Sakura? I mean, my middle name is Terrence, but no one calls me Richard Terrence McGuire," Rick said with a laugh.

Karen snorted with laughter.

"Your middle name is _Terrence_?"

Realizing his mistake, Rick sighed.

"Dammit…"

"Uh, right. Well, I'll just be going now," Sakura said loudly, with slightly forced cheerfulness, to the two young people who seemed to have completely forgotten her existence in their minor wrestling match executed on a bench.

She hurried away, and turned in at the short lane leading to the door of the clinic.

Maybe the doctor would be a sane, rational human being.

* * *

No, she decided, half an hour later, making her way down the lane and away from the clinic at almost a dead run, he was not.

She had harboured some hope for it when she had walked into the waiting room, only to be greeted by a pretty brunette seated by the counter, engaged in an intense game of Solitaire.

The sight of someone roughly her own age completely and utterly neglecting her _job _in favour of playing had reminded Sakura so comfortingly of the office work she had done for a year previous to coming here, that she had immediately gotten over the tragic and painful past that considerately buggered off whenever it wasn't convenient for a plot point, and spent a most enjoyable ten minutes chatting with the girl.

However, when Elli had called to the doctor that there was someone here to see him, Sakura had been a little nonplussed by the shout of complete jubilation, as well as the accompanying excited inquiry into whether or not this would require complex and time-consuming surgery.

Equally disturbing had been the young man's insistence that she should try a new sort of medicine he had been working on. She had nearly run screaming from the clinic at the slightly maniacal gleam in his eye, but when Sakura had sent a pleading look at Elli, the little nurse had made the universal hand-sign for "It's okay; it might taste like a combination of transmission fluid, turpentine, and Brussels sprouts, but it really does work. It'll really pick you up after all that farm work – make you feel better in no time."

A long, unwieldy message to cram into a simple gesture, but Sakura considered herself especially gifted in the area of the interpretation of sign language.

And so, she had taken the medicine. Gulped down every last drop, gagging over the stuff, and thanking all of the particularly pretty ancient goddesses that this was to be the end of her ordeal.

Until Elli had informed her, solemnly but eyes sparkling teasingly, that it tasted like that because of the poison the Doctor put in to ensure a continued steady stream of business.

The Doctor had been nearing the end of his panicked and angry demand of how Elli had figured it out, and just how much she knew, and how he had forgotten that ingredient in this batch, which might explain the painfully slow week they'd been having, growing more borderline hysterical with every word before he finally noticed both girls staring incredulously.

"Um…Doctor, I think she was joking," Sakura had finally piped up hesitantly.

"Of course," the Doctor had said, not missing a beat, his customary impassive expression returning. "So was I. Ha-ha, chortle, grin, and so forth."

All of this had led to the newly-made little farmer hurrying away from the clinic as though pursued by all the fiery demons of the netherworld.

Oh, well. Out of this entire town, _someone_ had to be normal.

* * *

Four hours later, Sakura stumbled blindly out of the church door.

Well, _someone_ might be normal, but it sure wasn't the pastor. Carter, or something. She was ordinarily good with names, but somehow, a four-hour rendition of the story of the toast he had had for breakfast, complete with sock puppets and pyrotechnic displays, had managed to drive it right out of her head.

Of course, the hundred-and-twenty-voice chorus he had hired to provide the background vocals had been incredibly good; she was thinking of asking Carter for a copy of the soundtrack next time she saw him. That scraggly-looking guy, Cliff, had told her that he was offering the two-record set for a pretty reasonable price.

But it had been a little creepy nonetheless. Just thinking about all those poor choristers crammed into the confessional booth made her shudder in sympathy.

She was, after all, an immensely kindly and sympathetic girl, wracked to her very core every minute of every day with pain for the suffering of others less fortunate. Truly, nothing could lessen the agony of a deep empathy with those in pain. It might be a hard burden to bear, but—

"Ooh! A puppy!" she exclaimed delightedly as she caught sight of a brown, floppy-eared little mass of energy barking excitedly at her from the other end of Rose Square.

She scampered towards the puppy as the narrator left in a huff at his young heroine's complete inability to remain consistent long enough for him to get properly through his dramatic monologue.

"Aw, you're so cute!" she squealed as the little animal leapt happily into her arms. "What's your name, uh…" She turned the dog over, much to its deep disapproval. "…girl?"

"Hannah! Where are you, Hannah?"

The next moment, May gave a startled squeal at the sight of a young woman, clad in overalls, blonde hair flying behind her in the breeze, lunging towards her.

"What a cute little girl!" the blonde exclaimed, huggling her enthusiastically.

"Um…thanks," May squeaked, frightened. "But can I have my puppy back now?"

Sakura looked from May, snuggled into her right arm, to the puppy, wedged somewhere between her left arm and her side, and laughed sheepishly.

"Right, sorry. She's a very cute little puppy you have here. And a very cute you to match!"

"Um, right," May agreed nervously, wriggling out of Sakura's grip and tugging Hannah along with her, before scurrying hastily out of Rose Square.

Sakura blinked.

"That was weird. I guess the poor thing is a little shy."

* * *

May shook her head as she trotted towards Yodel Ranch.

"I think that lady was crazy," she said sadly to Hannah.

Hannah, whose head was still spinning slightly from her brief inversion, gave a hearty woof of agreement.

_What_ was this town coming to, when people roamed around peeking at each other's secret bits?

* * *

"Ooh! I haven't been here yet!"

Quickly banishing the thought that maybe she should leave somewhere unexplored for today in the interest of having something exciting to do tomorrow, Sakura pushed through the door of Doug's Inn.

"Wow! What a warm welcome!" she said happily as a big, bearded redhead and a girl roughly her own age and clad in overalls hurried towards her, both smiling widely.

"We haven't seen you around here before, have we?" the girl asked. "Oh, you must be the new farmer that the Mayor was talking about! You know; once he got through telling us about his new penny and the apple stem he bought with it. I'm Ann, by the way. And this is my father, Doug."

"Oh, as implied by the name, 'Doug's Inn', right?" Sakura said, nodding sagely.

Ann and Doug exchanged glances.

"Um, yeah, that's right," Ann agreed hesitantly. "Anyway, would you like something to eat?"

"We'll treat you this time," Doug added. "Since you're new to Mineral Town."

On the verge of joyously accepting this unexpected treat – a sure sign that word of her breath-taking beauty had gotten around – Sakura stopped abruptly in mid-nod.

Wasn't this a little suspicious? Hadn't the Doctor shown her just what came of this so-called small-town hospitality?

That was it! Clearly, these two carrot-tops were in league with the Doctor! She glared.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Ann and Doug exchanged another glance.

"W-well, yeah, that's kind of why we offered," Ann admitted.

"Don't play sweet innocent barmaid with me, missy!" Sakura ordered, pointing emphatically at the little redhead. "I know all about your little plot with the Doctor!"

"You've been to see the Doctor?" Doug asked with a groan of dismay.

"You bet your ass I've seen him, missy! And tried his 'special medicine'," she added with over-emphasized finger quotes.

Ann's eyes widened.

"And you're still standing! You'll make a great farmer, insanity notwithstanding."

"Don't even try to change the subject! Your long flowing Titian hair and big sparkly blue eyes and killer body might fool some people, but I know what's going on! You poison your food, offer newcomers a free sample, and cash in on half the medical bill when the victim of your evil scheme gets rushed to the clinic!"

"What!" Ann shrieked as Doug's arm shot up automatically to hold her back from her very first bar brawl. "How insulting! We're just trying to be nice and get to know our new neighbour, and you come sailing in here, accusing us of poisoning people and—hey, did you just hit on me?"

"Alright, break it up, ladies," Doug growled, by now operating solely on the list of generic lines he had memorized in the instance of bar fight and thus neglecting to notice the lack of any actual contact thus far. He took his daughter by the shoulders. "Ann, she just told us she's been to see the Doctor. Everyone gets a little funny in the head when Tim tricks them into trying his 'special medicine'." He turned to Sakura. "And you! Well, I'm sorry that your first impression of this town was being poisoned by the local medical professional, but you can't take it out on everyone else! We don't _all_ go around poisoning people, you know. And you've got to hand it to him; he didn't make you pay for the antidote."

Sakura pouted.

"Okay, that's true. Even though I think he might have if his nurse hadn't put him in a wrestling hold. But do you want to hear about my second impression of Mineral Town?"

"Let's talk about it over juice and pie!" Ann suggested excitedly.

"Geez, you sure forgive quickly," Sakura noted.

"Actually, I just really like Dad's pie," the redhead admitted, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

"Okay, everyone," Doug laughed, setting a steaming hot apple pie in the middle of the table next to a large pitcher of grape punch. "Let's eat!"

As one, Ann and Sakura raised their fists in the air in triumph.

"Hooray!"

* * *

"La la-la la-la, it's a pretty day, la la-la la-la, it's a—oh, no!"

Popuri's joyful song melted into a dismayed squeak as she noticed something feathered and white scurrying towards the gate of the farm and freedom beyond. She hurried after the little would-be jailbreak, and stopped abruptly as a pair of heavy (yet stylish) work boots and two legs clad in attractively form-fitting denim came into her line of vision.

She looked up.

"Hey, I caught this feather duster trying to run away," the blonde told her solemnly. "Never seen household cleaning supplies go bad like that."

"Um…it's a chicken," Popuri informed the newcomer hesitantly, not entirely sure if she should be laughing at this girl's joke.

"Oh! I knew that."

"Wow; you need some serious help," the pink-haired girl noted sadly. "I can give you a quick chicken-care tutorial, if you like!"

"That might be good," Sakura shrugged noncommittally. "You know, to refresh my memory on some of the finer points."

"O-kay!" Popuri chirped happily. "Now, the three things you have to remember are: food, hygiene, and affection."

"Food, hygiene, and affection…do I need to write this down? I _do_ have an impeccable memory…"

"Every day, you have to remember to feed and water your chickens, clean out the coop when it gets dirty, and finally, once a day pick up your chickens and put them over there. All clear?"

"Uh, I think so," Sakura replied. "Except, if I'm planting the chickens in my field, why do I need to keep the coop clean?"

Popuri blinked huge, confused eyes.

"Um…what?"

"Well, you told me I have to water my chickens once a day," Sakura replied absently, reading over the notes she had jotted down onto a small notepad.

"No, no, you _give_ them water! In the water thingy!"

"Water thingy…is that the technical term?"

"Sure is! Come over here. This," Popuri said proudly, leading Sakura over to the chicken coop and gesturing to a big water tank attached to the side, "is the Acme Water Thingy 3001. Best on the market."

"O…kay. Feed 'em, fill the water thingy, clean the coop…but I'm still a little fuzzy on the last one."

"Picking them up and putting them over there? It's a _very_ important part of chicken care."

"I see. But what does it mean, exactly?"

"I'll demonstrate," Popuri replied, reaching for the chicken that Sakura had been nearly squeezing to death by tucking it under her arm throughout all of this.

The pink-haired girl set the chicken carefully on the ground and straightened up. Then, very deliberately, she bent down and took hold of the chicken.

"See? I pick him up…" She walked three equally deliberate steps, and then set the small creature down. "And I put him over there!"

"Right," Sakura mumbled, jotting down more notes. "So, every morning, I go into my coop, pick up my chicken, bring him to your farm, and put him down over there," she finished, pointing to the spot currently occupied by the chicken. "It's a little inconvenient, but if it makes them happy…"

"No, no, not _there_ specifically!" Popuri corrected hastily. "_There_ in a more…metaphorical sense. _There_ can be anywhere aside from the chicken's starting point."

"So, I just have to put it somewhere different."

"Right! Pick it up, and put it over there!"

"Got it," Sakura assured her. "One more question. Why?"

"The chickens like it!" Popuri explained very solemnly. "It makes them be over there!"

"POPURI!"

Both girls jumped, startled by this furious shout. Popuri turned, and rolled her eyes with a great, heaving sigh at the sight of her brother hurrying towards her.

"Rick, what's wrong?"

"What are you doing around my sister? I'll bet you're trying to lure her to the docks and spirit her away from us! Or just lure her into the chicken coop, have your fun with her, and drop her like so much used tissue! Well, I won't stand for it! If anyone is going to teach my sister about what happens between a man and a woman, it's _me_," the shaggy-haired young man spat, glowering darkly at Sakura. Then, after a long moment of peering closely at the little farmer-girl, he backed away quickly with a sheepish laugh. "Oh, hi, Sakura. Sorry about that. I thought you were…uh, someone else. Stupid Kai," he finished in a vicious mutter.

"Right; it must be the dead-pale city-girl skin, the long blonde hair, and the boobs," Popuri said sarcastically, glaring daggers at Rick, who blinked.

"Wow. Maybe you're not as close to Kai as I thought," he laughed. "You really have no idea what he looks like, Sis!"

"O-kay! I'm just gonna…go now," Sakura announced, ducking between the two siblings quickly assuming battle positions. "See you around."

"Rrr!" said Popuri.

"Rrr!" said Rick.

"Morons," said Sakura.

"Moo," said a passing cow.

"Galdernit! Get back here, you sonuvagun!" said Barley, hurrying past after the cow.

* * *

"Dammit!" Sakura exclaimed the next morning, staring helplessly at her vast field, a newly upgraded Mystrile watering can that Saibara had given her for free in honour of her beauty dangling from her left hand. "I forgot to plant again!"

* * *

And so the days passed. Gradually, Sakura became used to life on the farm. Eventually, she even remembered to buy some seeds and a chicken or two, thus solving the mystery of why this whole 'agriculture' venture was proving so woefully unprofitable. Her hand grew calloused, but still slim and beautiful and sexily scarred. The calluses were no matter; she had always been a firm believer that whatever didn't kill her, made her hotter. Her animal friends, being abnormally brilliant, began to learn by watching her how to water, and together she and her makeshift Disney movie frolicked through the field to the rousing melody of their improvised musical numbers.

As she became accustomed to her new life, the ripples cast through the peaceful town by Sakura's arrival subsided, and before long, she found herself no longer the stone that had cause the ripple, but part of the pond.

Or something like that.

Being good at everything was bound to cost her a penalty _somewhere_, after all. It just happened to be her poetic sense that suffered. Or her lack thereof, rather. She was still trying to think of a good rhyme for 'dog' to end off that nice little verse she had begun for English class in the fourth grade. Hopefully, the teacher wouldn't mind if she turned it in a bit late.

Nevertheless, whether a pebble or a pond, Sakura had managed to make a place for herself in the easygoing rural community of Mineral Town.

But her newfound peace was not to last, for a plot was brewing. Something with swift and far-reaching consequences. Something that would grab the town by its proverbial horns and whirl it about in a cyclone of confusion – metaphorically speaking, of course.

Something…evil.

* * *

End Notes: Okay; I solemnly swear on a stack of Discworld novels, the slightly…loopy way that Rick and the Doctor are acting _will_ have a purpose beyond cheap character-bashing. I love both of them to bits. Just wanted to clear that up, because I feel a little guilty about making the Doctor a mad scientist in this chapter. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

"I suppose you know why I've called you all here," Karen said in the sharp, authoritative tone the other girls had for years called her 'school-teacher voice'. 

From her position sandwiched between Mary and Popuri, Ann raised one hand timidly.

"Um, I'm just here because I live here."

Karen glowered briefly at nothing in particular.

"Okay, fine. I suppose you know why I've called _everyone except Ann_ here."

"So, I can get back to work now?" Ann asked hopefully.

"No!" Karen barked. "This concerns you, too!"

"Um, Karen," Mary piped up. "I don't know why you're so angry about this. I think Sakura seems really nice! She's been to the library to visit almost every day, and she brings me raisin bread!"

"How does she manage to make raisin bread?" Ann wondered aloud, scratching her head. "The last I heard, Old Man Davis's house didn't have a kitchen."

"Oh, she built herself one the other night when she couldn't sleep," Mary replied absently, sipping carefully at her grape juice.

"That must be what Gotz is so angry about," Elli commented sadly. "He came to the clinic to fix the door when it fell off the other day, and he seemed so irate! He grumbled the whole time about how no one appreciates the work he does, and no one understands him, and one of these days he's going to leave town and see how we all like repairing our own doors."

"We could just get Sakura to do it," Mary suggested.

"Good idea, Mary!" Elli chirped happily. Then she grew serious. "Honestly, Karen, I agree with Mary; Sakura's been really sweet to us. And she comes in for check-ups every week! I would like to see _some people_ be so concerned about their health," she finished pointedly, eyeing the bottle of wine from which Karen was taking periodic swigs.

Karen sighed. These girls were her friends. They had been her friends for years. She was letting them know about this growing concern of hers out of the goodness of her heart. However, if they weren't going to get it the subtle, kind, gentle way, she would just have to go with…the…uh, other way.

"Okay, Elli, you make a good point. But are you sure she's visiting for the good of her health?"

"Well, it's either her health, or she's in love with the Doctor, or she's addicted to the Bodigizers," Elli laughed.

* * *

"Oh, no!" Sakura wailed in harmonious despair as her brightest cerulean eyes scanned the pile of empty Bodigizer bottles in front of her. "I need more! So…good…"

* * *

"Okay, that was weird," Karen noted as the camera cut back. Then she turned angrily to Elli. "You sure don't seem too broken up about the idea that she might be trying to steal your man!" 

"My _boss_, Karen. My _boss_. Okay, yes, I have a little bit of a crush on him," she admitted, blushing brightly. "But it isn't going to destroy my life if he marries someone else. After all, I have more important things to think about than romance. And besides," she added, her blush deepening until her cheeks became nearly Rudolphian, "Gotz looks reeeally nice in a tight, sweaty white tee-shirt!"

"Oh, brother," Karen muttered amid the girlish giggles that filled the air from Ann and Popuri at this uncharacteristic comment from Elli, who was, by now, hiding behind a large glass of milk. "Well, for the rest of us, who have our priorities right, this could be a real problem!"

"But why should _we_ care if Sakura has a thing for the Doctor?" Popuri asked, confused. "I guess he's handsome, but he's kind of…well, fifteen years older than me."

"Not. The. Doctor," Karen bit out, wondering if she should just let Ann leave so she could get her another bottle of wine to assist her in dealing with this. Hey, speaking of Ann… "Ann! Do you know how many times Sakura has been upstairs, visiting Cliff at nights in the last three weeks?"

Ann leaned forward eagerly, nearly upsetting a plate of cookies.

"No! How many?"

Karen smiled grimly.

"Almost every night."

"Wow! That's wild!" Ann squealed. "Um, just one question. Who's Cliff?"

"That guy!" Karen thundered, gesturing over to a table in the corner.

The scruffy young man, preparing to apply himself with great gusto to his drink, looked up, his drink hovering between the table and his mouth. His face grew red at the sight of five pretty young women studying him curiously.

"Oh, him!" Ann said, nodding wisely. "He's nice. A little shy, though. But I think he and Sakura would make a cute couple. She'd sure break him out of his bubble in a hurry!"

"Ann, _you're_ supposed to break him out of his bubble," Karen said, dropping into her chair and rubbing her forehead wearily.

Ann blinked.

"Why?"

Karen flopped briefly forward to the tabletop in despair.

"Oh, come on! Cute, perky innkeeper's daughter and shy, depressed, scruffily handsome newcomer? It's Fate!"

"Well, I guess I can't argue with Fate," Ann said with a shrug. "People have been hit by lightning bolts for that in this town…"

"Good," Karen said smugly. Then she turned sharply to Mary. "And you! When does Sakura usually come by the library?"

"Some time in the afternoon," Mary replied hesitantly, as though not entirely sure she wanted to catch the meaning to Karen's question that was currently eluding her. "After she's finished with her work and has time for a shower."

"Exactly—hey, wait a second! When did Sakura get a shower?" Karen demanded, looking around the table from girl to girl.

"I think she called in a good-looking plumber from the city who is madly in love with her, but knows he has no chance and did the job for free just for the excuse to be near her," Popuri said happily, stealing one of Ann's cookies, only to be rewarded by a sharp rap across the knuckles from Elli.

"Sorry," the little nurse said sheepishly, shrinking back into her chair as Popuri turned an outraged expression on her. "It's a reflex when you have a little brother. Who likes cookies."

"Not to mention, those are _my_ cookies," Ann pouted, pulling the plate toward her and guarding it protectively.

"Can we stay on topic?" Karen ground out with a calmness that rather suggested a hurricane wind catching its breath before _really_ going at it.

"Eep!" said four badly frightened girls, obediently dropping their drinks and various assorted other refreshments and fixing their full attention on her.

"I'll take that as a yes," Karen said brightly.

"Close enough," Ann shrugged. "'Yes', 'please don't kill me', same thing."

"Mary!" Karen barked.

"It was Ann!" Mary wailed. "I didn't say anything!"

Karen assumed a pose and expression decidedly like someone who wanted very badly to scratch her head, but didn't wish to deal with such a blow to her dignity.

"What? No, I was in the middle of explaining why you have a stake in this, too."

"Oh, right!" Ann giggled. "And then we got distracted by Sakura's shower."

"Sakura visits the library in the afternoon, right?" Karen asked Mary, pointedly ignoring Ann. "When does Gray visit the library?"

"In the…afternoon," Mary finished, expression changing from confused to slightly sick. "Right. I don't know what to say, Karen. I like Gray a lot, but after what happened at the beginning of the season, I don't know if I can even trust myself around him!"

"Oh, Mary, it's okay," Elli assured her, patting her hand soothingly. "Gray usually knows not to try to take your book away."

"He said he doesn't hold it against me," Mary continued, shooting Elli a grateful, slightly wobbly smile. "And for some reason, he said it was kind of a turn-on to have a cute girl overpower him! But if he likes Sakura better, I can't change that."

Karen's head snapped up at these words.

"Yes, you can! And we'll talk about how in just a minute! Now. Popuri."

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to hear about why this problem involves you, too?"

"Um…I don't see how it can. The boy I like doesn't even live here," the pink-haired teen pointed out, frowning. "I mean, he lives here in the summers, but if Sakura is already hitting on four other boys, she'll probably be too busy for Kai."

"Kai likes women in general, remember?" Ann giggled. "They sound like a perfect match."

"The tramp must die," Popuri growled, her eyes glowing a demonic red as her hair turned to white-hot living flame. Seconds later, the glow (and the overwhelming heat of the hair-fire) faded and the girls breathed a sigh of relief as the gentle, bubbly girl they all knew and loved sat before them once more. "Even though she's a real sweetie, and really good with chickens, and she brings Mom flowers and milk every day. Hey, wait a second…"

"She's acting that way to put us off our guard," Karen informed her intensely. "And by the time she reveals her true nature, it'll be too late. One of our men will have fallen prey to her wicked traps, and one of _us_ will die alone!"

"Oh, Karen, don't be silly," Elli pleaded. "Even if one of the boys _does_ fall in love with Sakura, it doesn't mean that none of us can ever fall in love with anyone else. How do you _know_ we'll be alone forever?"

"Call it a hunch," Karen shrugged. "Just think about it, Elli; Sakura and the Doctor will be married, living at her farmhouse with its shower and kitchen and Jacuzzi and computerized wardrobe and water slide, and you'll be all alone in that big, dark, cold clinic, night after night. Growing older, year after year, while your youth slips away from you. Year after year. All alone."

"Um…okay, I guess that _could_ happen," Elli admitted, eyes looking suspiciously moist, fingers digging roughly into the fabric of her skirts. "But it's still wrong to plot against Sakura just because one of us might stay single a little longer."

"Ugh. You're hopeless," Karen informed her disgustedly. "How about you, Ann? Do you want to stay alone for the rest of your life?"

"Will there be lots of good food in this solitary future?" Ann asked, rubbing her chin in consideration.

"Mary?" Karen asked pleadingly.

"Um…well, if Sakura promises to treat Gray well, I'm willing to stand aside and let them be happy," Mary said despondently.

"Damn martyrs," Karen muttered, glaring at Mary and Elli in turn. "And what if she doesn't treat him well?"

"You know, Karen has a point," Ann said, a frown creasing her forehead as her eyes lit on an unsuspecting Cliff, who had finally gone back to his drink, comfortably sure that the girls had stopped making him the center of conversation. "It sounds like Sakura's hitting on every young, single guy in town. And I know that Karen'll protect Rick, and Mary'll keep an eye on Gray, and the Doctor probably won't notice that she's flirting with him. But what about Cliff? Who's going to look after him? It sounds like he's had a hard life, and the last thing he needs is some floozy who collects men like bottle caps!"

"Well-said, Ann!" Karen said with a smile of pure sentimental pride in a student well trained. "Someone needs to look after Cliff!"

"Exactly!" Ann agreed enthusiastically. "Elli! I think that if Sakura ends up with the Doctor, you should get to know Cliff a little better! He could use a nice girl like you. Especially a nurse; he seems to get sick a lot."

Four bewildered gazes affixed themselves firmly to Ann.

"U-um…what?" Elli finally asked hesitantly. "Ann, I think Karen kind of hoped that _you_ would look after Cliff."

Ann blinked.

"Oh! I guess I could do that," she finally agreed casually.

"And anyway," Karen added grimly, "looking after them might not be enough against a succubus like this. Especially with the trend I've noticed in the last few days."

Ann, Popuri, Mary, and Elli blinked several times in perfect unison.

"Around the late-middle of Spring," Karen began dramatically, "Sakura began acting…different. She's been humming all the time, always smiling, and she's had her head in the clouds almost constantly."

"That doesn't sound _that_ different for her," Popuri commented, head tilted adorably to one side.

"What it boils down to, is Sakura has fallen in love," Karen finished, before leaning back in her chair and awaiting the outburst that her revelation would cause.

"Oh. Um, that's nice for her," Elli said with slightly forced cheerfulness after a long moment. "I guess that means that four of us don't have to worry."

"Yeah!" Ann chirped. "I guess it's only one of our problems now. It's kind of like playing Russian Roulette!"

"Ann," Karen said warningly. "We're all best friends. We stick together. And we'll stick together now, working as one to neutralize this threat!"

"Oh, boy; looks like we've lost her," Ann sighed. "She's ranting."

The other three, meanwhile, were watching Karen warily. A strange glint had filled the girl's eye.

"We need a plan."

At that, the dimly lit, rustically comfortable main room of Doug's Inn was filled with the sound of alarm bells going off in the heads of four young women. However, since the bells were _inside_ the heads of the four young women, the main room of the inn was, effectively, filled with no sound at all, and instead a distinctly uncomfortable, slightly panicked silence that extended even to the customers that were not involved in the discussion on Sakura and her Feminine Wiles of Purest Evil.

* * *

The chronicler of this tale thinks it necessary, at this point, to step back for a moment and document the past history of Karen and her many Plans over the years. It is a little-known fact, but one strongly held to by those who are familiar with it, that Karen and Plans do not mix.

Back in the golden glory-days of their childhood, there had been a terrifying incident, burned indelibly into the mind of each girl – as well as everyone else unlucky enough to become involved – involving Karen's Brilliant Plan to Kapture the Kappa. Mary was particularly adamant in not thinking of the incident, as her right shoulder still bore the scar inflicted by a furious Karen when she had ventured to mention that 'capture' was not spelled with a 'K'. To Karen's credit, it had not been an easy year for her family, what with the purse strings being tightened in order to compensate for the failure of certain villagers (whose names may or may not have started with 'D' and ended with 'uke') to pay their bills. The year was to become abruptly worse when, during their mid-winter attempt, a large crack had formed in the ice and abruptly swallowed up Ann, who had been half-pulled, half-lifted to safety, by a gaggle of frantically shrieking little girls and a Kappa who disliked small, loud creatures invading his lake, respectively. When Karen, Elli, Mary, and Popuri had dragged a shivering Ann into Gotz's cabin and gasped out an account of their attempt to catch the Kappa in order to train him to beat up Duke until the aforementioned wine-maker paid up, the story had gotten back to Sasha and Jeff, the former of whom had given Karen even more reasons to loathe the winter, while the latter just sort of made noises.

Buried within the early teen years of Mineral Town's bevy of lovely, bright-eyed young ladies was an equally horrifying, equally hazardous incident in which Rick had accidentally wandered into the back room of the Supermarket while Karen was in a state of distinct toplessness. And then spent a joyously dazed minute and a half drinking in every glorious detail of Karen's budding…feminine charms, until the aforementioned Karen had regained the presence of mind to throw something at him. And also, to cover up. Rick, having a lower than average sense of self-preservation, had been rather unwisely teasing and smug about the incident, and about having seen more of her than she had of him. This had sparked a decidedly unexpected urge in Karen: the urge to catch Rick with his pants down, as it were. And so, the unfortunate girls of Mineral Town had found themselves rigging up a pulley system outside of the Poultry Farm, to hoist Karen up to the window directly over Rick's bed. To cut short an overly long tale of woe and property damage, that same window had been broken during Karen's attempts to swing closer for a better look, and Karen had been treated to the sight of Rick's torso oozing blood from numerous short, deep cuts, while sprawled directly over his face as he had flailed helplessly about, unable to breathe. The girls on the ground had attempted to scatter, but in doing so had frightened the chickens into quite a lather of rage. When Harris had finally happened upon the scene, it had been to find a rain of feathers drifting peacefully down upon four girls pecked mercilessly by a horde of panicked chickens. Soon after this, Ann had developed a delicious recipe for honey-garlic wings out of revenge, and it had become a favourite of both Elli and Mary, regardless of Popuri's reproachful glances.

The next tale of woe had occurred shortly after the arrival of the handsome young Doctor Tim to Mineral Town. Karen had noticed the seventeen-year old Elli, previously immovable to the charms of the young men of the area, blushing and stammering and dropping things in the dark-haired man's presence, and decided that Something Must be Done. This, unfortunately for everyone involved, had taken the form of an elaborate and poorly-constructed Plan to arouse the Doctor's jealous instincts at the sight of someone else making successful advances on _his_ pretty little number-one fan. After all, Karen had reasoned, Elli clearly wanted to win her boss's heart, and the quickest path to a man's heart was through his caveman instinct of "MINE!" Thus had Ann ended up helping Karen wrap herself tightly in uncomfortable bindings and some borrowed clothing from Rick (who had grown incredibly fond of Karen's usually disastrous Plans over the years), and eventually keeping careful watch in front of the clinic for the Doctor's return. When Ann's shout had reached Karen's ears, she had adjusted the lock of her own hair taped directly under her nose that served as a mustache, and hissed urgently at Elli, "hurry up and kiss me!" This command, Elli had confided blushingly to Mary later, had given her a strange tingly feeling, and she had complied automatically, giving a cross-dressing Karen far more than the stage-kiss they had talked about. When the bewildered Doctor took in this scene, he had been completely fooled not by Karen's man-disguise, but by the genuine nature of the kissing the girls were happily engaged in on the couch. Unfortunately, this had led, at great length, to his assuring Elli, in front of several shocked villagers, that she didn't need to sneak around with Karen anymore, because he at least would fully support their decision for an alternate lifestyle. At far greater length, the tangle had been eventually worked out, and the two girls had spent long hours in their respective bathtubs, attempting to vigorously scrub away all memory of the fiasco.

* * *

And now, after this lengthy step away from the sequence of relevant events, let us return to it, dear readers, as the girls have been given by far long enough to come to terms with their dismay over Karen's New Plan.

"Um…what exactly do you have in mind, Karen?" Mary asked, choking slightly over her beverage.

"Oh, not much," Karen shrugged. "First, we've got to figure out which guy she's after. So, we'd better keep a close eye on her for a while."

"Which means stalking," Mary paraphrased, sighing resignedly.

"Not _stalking_," Karen protested hotly. "Just some…close observation."

"Will this 'close observation' involve tailing her home and camping outside her window late at night?" Elli asked suspiciously.

"Every good plan takes a little effort," Karen said inexorably.

"Then why do we end up working so hard on _your_ plans?" Mary murmured.

"I think it might be fun!" Popuri announced brightly. "We'll be like spies! We can make up codenames!"

The bespectacled librarian flopped facedown on the table in despair and gave an unearthly groan of despair.

"Oh, this is going to end worse than Operation Katch the Kappa…"

* * *

End Notes: Whoooooo, this scene dragged on a while longer than I expected! I think it's because I'm officially addicted to having the five girls in the same room, trying unsuccessfully to get to the point. Oh, well; next chapter, the lack-of-plot should get moving again. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

----------------------------------------------

It was the dead of a dark and stormy night. Wolves howled in the trees, as they had climbed up, with great difficulty, after a particularly unlucky cat, and were buggered if they could figure out how this "climbing down" thing worked.

While most of Mineral Town slumbered peacefully in their beds, resting comfortably in the knowledge of a hard day's work, something stirred within the little house at the upper edge of the Poultry Farm. Upstairs, within the darkness of the family's sleeping quarters. Upon the upper lip of one young man slumbering as peacefully as any other townsperson. Something dark and sinister, thin and black, casting eerily twisting shadows on the wall as a flash of lightning lit up the sky with the brightness of day. Except, like…not. Later, and stuff.

The source of the vile shadow attempted to let loose with a properly dramatic bellow of laughter as a crack of thunder echoed outside the window, to give voice to the evil glee welling up within the cavity that ought to have held its soul, long since sold for the best cream rinses on the market. However, lacking both a mouth and vocal chords, it failed utterly, and settled in on the young man's upper lip for a long night of pouting.

But soon, its time would come.

Sooooooooooooooooooooon.

-----------------------------------------------

"Good morning, Doctor, how are—"

Here, Elli came to a dead halt, her cheery good morning trailing off into a decidedly impolite gawp at the strange sight before her.

The dark-haired young man in the lab coat was, indeed, seated in his desk, clothes neatly pressed thanks to his little nurse's eagerness to please, in sharp contrast to his hair, slightly mussed in testament to the fact that he was, indeed, very watchful, and tended to catch her out before she could comb it for him.

However, rather than the small, fond smile usually reserved for her enthusiastic greetings on _just this sort of morning_, when the scent of rain hung in the air, when the sparkling droplets shone on leaves and flowers, when all the world seemed fresh and clean and new and glad to be alive; the doctor wore a very decided frown.

A _pout_, even, Elli thought bewilderedly, once her eyes managed to move past the curling, pencil-thin black mustache that she was fairly willing to bet hadn't been there yesterday.

She ought to know, after all; she was quite certain that she spent more time closely examining everything about him than anyone else in town. Even the things that didn't involve the use of the peeping hole in the wall between their rooms.

"Um…you have a mustache," she announced lamely.

"Yes, thank-you, Elli, I hadn't noticed," the doctor grumbled, cupping his chin in his hand and leaning despondently on his desk.

"How…how did you manage to grow it out so fast?"

"I don't know," he replied helplessly. "Yesterday, I had no facial hair to speak of, and this morning, I woke up with this…this _monstrosity_."

"It doesn't look _that_ bad," the befrilled girl perched at the edge of his desk assured him. "It's a new look, but it's kind of nice. Although, you might want to think about investing in some really good mustache wax."

"Not that bad!" he repeated, disbelief fairly dripping from his expression and voice. HE was very decidedly opting against going anywhere near her mention of mustache wax, or exactly how she knew anything about men with mustaches and the upkeep thereof. "Elli, I look like an evil duke who delights in oppressing his servants, or something!"

"Hmm…it _does_ give you a bit of a sinister air," she agreed mischievously, looking shyly away, cheeks growing pink. "I would have said snake oil salesman, myself, but an evil duke is a lot more elegant. I like it!"

"I think you're missing the point," the doctor might have informed her gently, had Rick not chosen just that moment to burst into the room through the gap in the curtains.

"Hi, Doctor," he greeted breathlessly. "I would have waited and made an appointment, but Elli wasn't out there. I think I've got a bit of a…"

Here, he trailed off, expression freezing into blank surprise as his eyes lit on the mustache, on another man's face, that had grown so chillingly familiar to him after several minutes of staring disbelievingly into the bathroom mirror, trying to recall if he had been drunk enough last night to take some sort of experimental hair growth tonic. After all, Karen had been strangely absent from the bar last night, and without trying to impose a drink limit on her before she lost consciousness, he had had nothing to distract him drinking himself into a similar state of unconsciousness, or at least, memory loss.

And so passed a long moment during which much may have happened elsewhere in the world, or even elsewhere in Mineral Town, but which was passed in the back room of the clinic by the sound of two young men staring bewilderedly at each other, learning to both their joy and their dismay that they were not the only one afflicted.

And also, by the sound of one young woman in a poofy blue dress trying very hard not to laugh any more than was strictly decent.

Finally, Rick heaved a long sigh.

"Never mind."

------------------------------------------------------------

"WAAAH!" Sakura was, in a show of complete and generally meaningless coincidence, howling at just that moment as her foot caught on a particularly warm, soft, and squishy branch conveniently placed just outside her front door.

"Ow!" Ann yelped in reply as the toe of Sakura's heavy work boot dug into the sensitive, fleshy part of her calf, providing a rather rude awakening that even the decidedly rough, stony, and grassy quality of her makeshift bed hadn't managed to reconcile her to.

"Ann!" Karen called, bolting toward the farmhouse from her post crouched behind the large, sturdy tree next to the fish pond. "Did you find out who…oh, hi, Sakura," she finished, expression melting immediately into a smile so entirely pleasant – and convincingly so – that Ann would later confide to Mary that it was "almost creepy".

"Hey, guys," Sakura greeted beamingly, peeling herself from the ground. "Funny running into you two here!"

"You're getting a late start today," Ann noted, attempting to shoot Karen a subtly meaningful look and completely failing at the _subtle_ aspect thereof.

Having a slightly firmer grasp on exactly what made a good super-spy, Karen, far more subtly, attempted to peek around Sakura and through the front door, still open.

"Yeah, I know," Sakura said sadly. "I'm just so tired! Didn't get to sleep until really late last night."

"Really? Do you think something's wrong?" Karen asked, face and voice the very picture – and…er, _sound_ – of concern. "Maybe you should go ask the doctor if insomnia is normal for young, hard-working farmers."

"Or maybe," Ann added, peering suspiciously at the blonde, "you'd just feel better if the doctor gave you a _special check-up_, eh? Maybe that's why you didn't get to sleep last night – he was making a _special house call_ or something?"

"No, the doctor wasn't here; he said he had an appointment with his peeping hole, or something. Y'know, Elli said exactly the same thing when I asked her over a few nights ago! Weird, huh?" the little farmer concluded with a laugh, shaking her head and folding her arms.

"Great," Karen huffed. "That's just what I want to hear about first thing in the morning: the doctor's voyeuristic habits with the sweet, innocent young girl sleeping one room over."

"Really? That's kinda strange," Sakura informed her absently, backing away slowly and casting a nervous glance over her shoulder as she recalled the framed photograph lying on her bed, very likely visible from the door.

"Well, then, maybe if the doctor doesn't suit your tastes, you should think about going to Saibara's and seeing if Gray could invent some magical tool of instant sleep, or something," Ann suggested, peering even more suspiciously at Sakura.

"Subtle," Karen noted aside, heaving a long-suffering sigh.

Sakura made a noise of amused disbelief.

"Well, geez, Ann, you can do that with a hammer!"

"Oh, I'd like to," Karen muttered, eyeing Sakura's tool chest longingly through the open door. "By the way, Sakura, have you seen Cliff around? Ann was looking for him."

Ann scratched her head.

"I was?"

"I saw him the other day when I went to pick up my copy of Carter's Toasteriffic Musical Extravaganza," Sakura replied cheerfully. "But when I asked him if he wanted to come listen to it with me, he said he had somewhere else to be. Right now," she added. "And then he just hopped up and ran right out the door! And that was the last time I saw him."

"Well, have you seen Rick lately?" Ann asked, shooting a glare at Karen. "I think _Karen_ was looking for _him_."

"Which one was Rick?" the farmer asked, scratching her head.

"Chicken guy," Ann replied."

Sakura nodded in perfect understanding.

"Oh, right; him. Sorry, haven't seen him since the last time I bought a chicken. But I've been kinda…well, busy," she finished, blushing brightly and rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

Karen, who had been hitherto trying to will herself out of this conversation, snapped back to attention.

"Busy with what?" she demanded sharply.

The little blonde pondered this carefully.

"Hmm…clearing my field, tilling, planting, watering, foraging for extra money, taking care of my chickens, taking care of my horse, taking care of my puppy, my monkey, my snake, my bunny, my boyfri—" She stopped abruptly, looking distinctly horrified. She gave a nervous laugh. "Um, forget I said that, okay?"

Karen and Ann exchanged significant looks.

"Sure, Sakura. We'll see you later, alright?" Karen said a little tersely before dragging Ann from the farmyard by the back of her overalls.

Sakura watched them go, shaking her head fondly.

Her new friends were something else, alright.

------------------------------------------------------

"Burnin' the ground, I break from the crowd, I'm on the hunt, I'm after you…" Rick sang softly as he splashed water carefully onto his upper lip and reached for the can of shaving cream waiting at the side of the sink.

He sighed as he lathered the white foam over his mustache.

"What a waste of time. I can't believe I'm stuck up here, in the middle of the day, _shaving_. Although," he added, his frown deepening, "there's nothing else to do, since Karen never showed up this morning."

With a shrug, he picked up the razor and leaned closer to the mirror, preparing to rid himself of his unwanted new look.

However, as the razor touched his lip, he found it jerked out of his hand by something thin, black, hair, and apparently bearing quite a healthy sense of self-preservation.

Rick stared, bewildered, at the razor, buried an inch and a half deep in the bathroom wall. It was to be several seconds before he could tear himself away from this enough to notice the fact that his mustache had grown by about two feet in the last thirty seconds, and was currently raiding the medicine cabinet.

"Wow…" he finally noted in a stunning display of understatement. "That's not good."

-----------------------------------------------------

"Well, _that _went well," Karen said, glaring accusingly at Ann as the two hurried up the road back into town. "She probably thinks we're both crazy now."

"I don't know," Ann said dubiously, a thought bubble popping up over her head containing a picture of Sakura with her customary beaming, utterly oblivious grin. "It kinda seems like she wouldn't catch a hint if it fell on her."

However, Karen was, by this point, in no condition to listen to logic, or anything that resembled it remotely. Utterly ignoring Ann's comment, she continued to vent.

"And where were Mary, Elli, and Popuri while _we _were doing all the hard work?"

"Well, you know Mary when it comes to that Library," Ann grinned. "She'd _never_ consider taking a day off, or letting someone else open up for her, or letting someone else touch one of her books. And you know the Doctor when it comes to Elli being late for work. Not that she is very often," the redhead finished, pondering this. "I guess that's the good thing about living at your job."

"What about Popuri?" Karen repeated, slowing to a halt, a dismayed expression washing over her face. "She was with us last night, wasn't she?"

-------------------------------------------------------

"Uh…guys?" the pink-haired lass squeaked miserably, clinging tightly to the – hopefully – sturdy tree branch on which she had chanced to fall asleep last night…and thus, wake up upon this morning in a very, very bad mood.

Then, as her gaze caught on something furry, sharp-toothed, and frantically barking on the ground, she groaned in dismay.

"Oh, _no_..."

------------------------------------------------------

"She probably just got bored and went home," Ann shrugged. "Popuri does that sometimes, you know."

Karen considered this. Hadn't Popuri been the only one, apart from her, with the slightest inkling of why this situation needed to be reversed before it could worsen? Wasn't the poor girl tired of being dismissed as a sweet, harmless airhead simply because she had been born with big, bright eyes, lots of soft, fluffy pink hair, and a propensity for looking almost supernaturally adorable no matter what she was doing? Hadn't she, Karen, been saying for years that Popuri was far smarter than anyone suspected?

Mind made up, Karen turned to Ann.

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Hey, do you think we should go ask her why she left?" Ann asked as they approached the Poultry Farm.

"Sure," the older girl shrugged, and together they turned in at the lane.

Raising her hand to knock softly and alert Lillia that they were coming in, Karen stopped short at the sound of a crash, followed by several thumps, followed by another crash.

"Lillia?" she called, rapping sharply at the door.

"Come in," a sweet voice tinged with concern called back.

"What the heck is going on up there?" Ann asked, frowning upwards as a long, pained scream echoed through the air.

"I don't know," the pretty pink-haired woman replied with a long-suffering sigh. "I think there's something wrong with Rick. First the mustache, and now this!"

"Mustache?" Ann echoed, staring blankly until Karen caught her arm and dragged her towards the stairs.

"Let's go check on him," she said in a tone that implied far more _command_ than _suggestion_.

"Yeah, good idea," the redhead agreed, trotting up the stairs after Karen. "When Rick gets like this, he usually ends up hurting him—ACK!"

This rather strangely timed exclamation was due not to Ann's sudden and inexplicable descent into insanity and corresponding desire to shout odd things at odd moments, but instead by the pretty vase of blue glass flying over her head, missing it by millimetres, and into a wall, upon which it exploded in a shower of glass shards.

"…the HECK!" Ann demanded angrily, brushing some glass of her shoulder.

"Rick! What are you doing!" Karen demanded furiously as a bar of soap and several bottles of shampoo sailed majestically out of the open bathroom door.

"Karen?" a distinctly weary and piteous voice called in reply. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," she shot back, picking her way through the various objects littering the floor of the family's sleeping area, usually kept immaculate by its obsessively tidy inhabitants, and approaching the door of the bathroom, Ann, shrinking behind her like a nervous little shadow. "Now, why the hell are you…huddling in the corner of the bathtub and wearing that stupid fake mustache, for a start?"

Rick dropped his head to his hands and gave an unearthly groan of despair.

"It's not fake," he informed the girls, his voice muffled by several fingers – eight, to be exact, as well as two thumbs.

Karen snorted.

"Rick, you couldn't grow facial hair if your life depended on it."

"I know!" Rick wailed. "That's why I'm worried! Well, that, and it tried to throw one of the chickens into the river while I was feeding them this morning."

"I suppose you're going to tell us that the mustache made this mess, too," Karen said, eyeing him suspiciously after a quick glance around at the abundant chaos.

"It wasn't me, coppers! The mustache made me do it!" Ann giggled.

Karen wheeled on her.

"Will you shut up!" She turned back to Rick. "Listen, Rick; if this idiotic story you're telling us is true, and your mustache really _is_ possessing you and making you do these things—"

"It isn't!" Rick interjected. "It's not making _me_ do anything, it's doing stuff itself!"

"—then why don't you just shave it off? It's only hair."

"Be a man!" Ann added, nearly dancing with mirth. "Show that scraggly little thing who's boss!"

"Don't make it mad!" Rick yelped, clapping his hands over his face.

"You want a piece?" Ann demanded of Rick's upper lip. "Just come and get it!"

"Seriously, Rick," Karen said, ignoring Ann, who was by now dancing wildly about the bathroom, fists raised in a boxer pose. "Just shave it off!"

"What do you think made it mad enough to do _this_?" Rick demanded angrily, indicating the chaos with a sweep of his arm. "Geez…first Elli, now you! You women just don't get it!"

Karen sighed heavily, lamenting her own taste in men.

"Listen to yourself, Rick." She reached for the spare straight razor lying near the bathroom sink. "But if you're too cowardly to shave by yourself, just sit still, and I'll do it."

"Karen! No!" Rick shouted, stepping back as she approached.

Time seemed to slow as the diabolical facial hair grow nearly two feet in a matter of seconds, snaking forward with lightning speed to snatch the razor with one side, and lift Karen off the ground by the back of her vest with the other. Then, rather confused, it hesitated a moment before hurling the razor out the window. A pained squawk drifted up from the chicken yard below.

"Not Dilly!" Ann wailed brokenly as a flurry of feathers below caught her eye.

"Uh…Ann?" Rick pressed. "Bigger problems right now?"

"Oh, right! Sorry," she giggled, before springing forward to free Karen from the grip of the mustache.

With its free size, it gave the well-intentioned redhead an effortless swat that sent her tumbling back into a very bewildered (and embarrassed) heap in the bathtub.

Meanwhile, Karen certainly wasn't suffering her ordeal in silence. Phrases such as "Put me down, you freak of nature!", "Curly, waxy spawn of evil!", and "…get the trimming of your life as soon as I get down!" could be heard, growing louder and softer by turn as she whizzed to and fro through the air.

"I am TOTALLY going to tell this story at your wedding," Ann informed them in something best described as a woozy cackle, peeling herself from the tub. "Ow, by the way."

Then, just as all seemed lost, as Karen felt her breakfast making an untimely return, as Rick began to reconcile himself to a career as a superhero reject, as Ann began to feel herself swayed in favour of using puppets to best portray the gripping drama of the situation, a flurry of blonde hair and the _shing_ of a sickle being drawn – somehow – filled the air.

"Unhand this fair maiden, Hairy Spawn of Something Really Bad!" Sakura commanded, posing heroically in all her sunburned, overalled glory.

Perhaps unable to refuse such a vision of loveliness, perhaps simply to get the pot moving again, the mustache complied immediately, much to the relief of Rick, who later averred that he could lift Karen without much trouble, but not using his _hair_, for crappsake!

Then, snatching up a plunger, it surged forward to attack its foe.

A hairy quarter of an hour followed, but when the dust – and cream rinse – had finally settled, it was upon a victorious Sakura, one arm draped over a heavily protesting Karen and the other over a hysterically laughing Ann.

"Hair today, gone tomorrow," she quipped, the sunlight glinting off her teeth as she grinned a huge, cheesy grin.

"Thanks, Sakura," Rick said, drawing a long breath and pulling at the shorn ends of his mustache.

"No problem, son," Sakura said heartily, unhanding the girls. "But remember: you have to take good care of your facial hair, or it tends to go bad."

"Uh, sure," the sandy-haired young man agreed hesitantly.

Once the three had gone, he shook his head.

"Is it just me, or has life gotten a lot weirder around here since she showed up?"

------------------------------------------------------

"Is it just me," Gray asked approximately four hours later, his forehead wrinkled with more annoyance than wonderment, "or have we been totally shafted for air-time in this story so far?"

The pretty, dark-haired librarian carefully set a stack of books down on the table in front of the boy and patted his shoulder consolingly.

"Don't worry, Gray; I don't think we're really missing much."

"Maybe, but that's not the point! This author practically gives us Elli's life story, and spends the last two chapters on Karen's descent into madness, and what do I get?"

"'Peace, perfect peace'," Mary quoted with a sigh, cupping her chin in her hand.

"I get to drag Grandpa up from the bottom of the mine," Gray continued, in no mood to be placated by logic, "and then I get beat up by the cutest girl in town. And then I disappear for three chapters!"

Mary shrugged helplessly, at a loss.

"Well, maybe you'll get a bigger part later on."

"I doubt it," he pouted.

"Look at it this way, Gray," she said with a slightly mischievous smile. "If we're not in the story much, that means we have free time for…other things. Fun things. Things we couldn't do if everyone was around, making lots of noise."

The thundercloud that had taken up residence in the young man's face seemed to dissipate instantly as her full meaning occurred to him.

"Y-yeah," he agreed with a goofy grin. Then, after a long moment, he continued. "So…like what?"

"Like reading!" Mary chirped brightly, pushing a large, heavy hardcover towards him.

Gray looked ecstatic.

"Yeah! We have more time for books! This is great! Thank-you, Mary!"

He took the large volume lovingly in his hands, and had just begun to flip to the first page when the door of the library swung open.

"Hi!" a little girl with dark hair in two long plaits greeted them sweetly.

"Oh, hi there, May," Mary said, reaching for a lollipop. "Gray and I were just talking about the joys of reading!"

"The joys of reading?" May echoed, accepting the lollipop enthusiastically.

"The joys of reading," Mary confirmed. "Say, May, how'd you like Gray and me to teach _you_ how to read?"

"That's okay," May said with a huge smile. "I already know how to read!" She turned to face an imaginary camera crew. "And knowing is half the battle!"

Together, the three book enthusiasts struck triumphant, and more than slightly cheesy, poses. Then, as a sound caught his attention, Gray frowned.

"What was that?"

"I don't know," Mary replied in a whisper. "It sounded like a group of men, all singing 'G. I. Joe!' in unison."

"I'm scared," May whimpered.

"It's okay," the bespectacled librarian said consolingly, handing her a book. "Reading will make it all go away."

May examined the cover. Stephen King's _The Shining: Pop-Up Edition_.

"Yaay!"

--------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Wow…what's there to say this time? Other than, Bezo, if you're reading this, the G. I. Joe gag is dedicated to you.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

------------------------------------------------

"Can you believe the nerve of that show-off?" Karen ranted furiously as she stormed up the road toward Rose Square.

Trotting after her, Ann scratched her head.

"What did she do this time? I thought it was kinda nice of her to come help us like that."

"Exactly!" Karen exclaimed. "So do I! That's the point! She comes barging in, making a big deal about how nice she's being to the stupid little country bumpkins who can't even _shave_ without something going wrong, swinging around that Mystrile Sickle of hers, spouting witty dialogue!"

Ann blinked wide, confused blue eyes several times.

"Witty dialogue?" she repeated. "I remember lots of _stupid_ dialogue, but I don't remember any of the _witty_ stuff."

"And the way she just _happened _to be there in the nick of time?" Karen continued. "What a joke! She was obviously eavesdropping at the bottom of the stairs, waiting until the most dramatically effective moment to make her appearance. _No_ one's _that_ lucky."

"I don't know," Ann said in a tone of great consideration. "She _is_ good at everything else; why _wouldn't_ she be abnormally lucky?"

Karen made a noise of disgust.

"Ugh…and did you see Rick swooning over her? 'Oh, Sakura!' she mimicked. 'You're my hero! Thank-you so much! You've saved my life, and the lives of all of Mineral Town! If there's _ever_ anything I can do to make it up to you…'"

As she continued to utter the sort of gibberish that Rick would have been horribly embarrassed to _hear_, let alone to speak himself, Ann's face became a brown study. A thought bubble appeared above her head, within a particularly cartoonish rendition of Rick.

The redhead listened very carefully as her apparition of the long-haired boy recited all the lines he had spoken to the blonde farmer in the previous scene.

_Thanks, Sakura._

_Uh, sure._

She frowned. _That_ didn't sound like anything Karen was saying. Ann tried again, her brow furrowing with greater concentration.

_Thanks, Sakura._

_Uh, sure._

Nope, still nothing. One more time.

_Thanks, Sakura._

_Uh, sure._

It was no use, Ann thought with a mournful sigh. Obviously, she had witnessed an entirely different scene than Karen had, but her friend was upset, and it was at times like these that a little sensitivity and kindness was called for.

"You're right, Karen," she said decidedly. "That smooth-talking city-gal's got all the guys under some kind of spell. Luckily," she added, her expression warping into something very closely resembling pure evil, "we girls are immune."

Karen stopped short, stared incredulously at the redhead, and then sighed.

"Why do I get the feeling that I've just created a monster?"

-------------------------------------------------

"We're not gonna paa-aay, we're not gonna paa-aay, we're not gonna paaaay, for our toast!" Sakura sang jubilantly as she skipped up the road from her farm into town.

Ever since she'd picked up her copy of Carter's Toasterrific Musical Extravaganza, she'd been listening to it on the record payer she had been given by a portly gentleman named Van in honour of her beauty and grace (as well as the several hundred thousand gold the rip-off artist had demanded for it), and now she had the entire thing running through her head in snippets.

Incidentally, it was also during this period of time that her consumption of crisp, lightly warmed bread had tripled. Sakura couldn't explain it; the songs just made her so…hungry.

As she passed the forge, she noticed a group of people gathered up ahead, and squealed happily.

"I wonder if the live production is touring again!"

She scampered over to join the small knot of people, and stopped short. In addition to Popuri and May, there was a young man that she was fairly certain she had never seen before. Tall, slim, yet somehow also incredibly muscular, swarthy, head wrapped in a purple bandana, dark eyes twinkling, friendly roguish laugh carrying on the soft almost-summer breeze. A vision of beauty in male form.

"Darn," Sakura sighed. "It's just some guy. I wanted to see _Toast!_ again."

May turned.

"Oh, hi Sakura," she greeted cheerfully, making sure to stay well out of tackle-hugging range. "Come meet Kai!"

"Kai, this is the girl we were telling you about," Popuri explained, taking Sakura's arm and hurrying her over. "The one who took over the old man's farm."

"Oh, right!" Kai grinned. "The demonic succubus who sucks the blood from innocent baby chickens and wants to steal all the guys for herself!"

"Hey!" Sakura barked sternly at the same instant as Kai collapsed, wheezing, with Popuri's elbow firmly in his side. "I do not want all the guys! Seriously; men are more work than cows. They make a bigger mess, and they eat twice as much, eh, Kai?" She nudged Kai conspiratorially for several seconds, before grinning sheepishly as she noticed the young man's glare. "Oh, right; guy. Well, I gotta get going; I'm on my way to the Library, and all those books won't just up and read themselves, you know!"

"No, but Mary will probably read them," May pointed out. "And Gray, 'cause he's trying to impress her."

Sakura blinked.

"Um…well…maybe I want to impress Mary, too! You ever think of that?"

"Not asking," Kai muttered aside to Popuri, who giggled.

This, however, all flew completely over the eight-year old head of May, who shrugged.

"Kaay. I'm going to the Library, too, so I'll walk with you."

"You two are going?" Kai asked hopefully, stealing a suggestive sideways grin at a blushing Popuri. "See you." He turned to address Sakura. "Nice to meet you, man."

Sakura bristled.

"I am _not_ a man!"

"Sorry," Kai shrugged. "Nice to meet you, woman."

"Kai!" Popuri exclaimed, delivering a painful swat to the back of his head. "That is sexist and demeaning!"

"Okay! Geez, sorry!" Kai exclaimed, adjusting his bandana. "Nice to meet you, non-gender-specific, valuable member of the human race."

"Nice to meet you too, Kai," Sakura called back cheerfully, taking May's hand and skipping away, half dragging the unfortunate child behind her. "Think of me, think of me fondly, when you're eating toast…"

"Man, what a psycho," Kai sighed, watching May scurrying madly in a futile effort to keep up with Sakura's boundless and dangerous energy.

Popuri bristled.

"I am _not_ a man!"

Kai sighed again.

"Ugh…"

----------------------------------------------------------

"Good afternoon, Rick," the doctor greeted with the aloof pleasantness that, it is rather curious but almost entirely irrelevant, made a sizeable starring role in the dreams of one short-haired brunette who may or may not have worked as his nurse, four nights out of five, the fifth being dedicated entirely to the 'strange, fluttery feeling' it gave her whenever he became truly angry. "I see you still have the mustache. So, what seems to be the trouble?"

"I still have the mustache," Rick replied somewhat testily. "And it's starting to do some strange things."

"Strange, how?" Tim asked, leaning forward over his desk and tugging at the end of his own mustache as he listened intently.

"Well, early this morning, it attacked one of the chickens. Then, when I tried to shave it off, it went bad again and attacked Karen. Sakura hacked most of it off with her sickle when she happened by with suspiciously good timing, but now it's all grown back again!"

The doctor sighed.

"I was afraid that I might not be the only one; my mustache has been having fits of violence, too."

"I'll say," a sweet, feminine voice called a second before a sulky, brown-eyed little female appeared at the doorway, dust rag and polish in hand.

Rick stared at the long, jagged cut extending over Elli's left eye, and the bandage wrapped tightly around her wrist. And was she limping a little?

"Wow…the doctor's mustache did that to you, Elli?"

"Yeah," she sighed sadly. "When I tried to shave it off. Although, for some reason, it bent me over and hit me on the…um…bottom with a ruler about ten times first."

Turning slightly red, the doctor surreptitiously nudged the long wooden ruler at the edge of his desk under a pile of papers, then turned disapproving eyes on his nurse.

"What are you doing out of bed anyway? I didn't give you the day off to rest just so you could spend it…what are you doing, exactly?"

She returned his disapproving gaze with a faintly annoyed one.

"I'm dusting your shelves, because people have been complaining that whenever they come to see you, their allergies start acting up. And people shouldn't feel _worse_ after a trip to the doctor's. Unless it's because of the poison," she added quickly, "because _that_ is for their own good; it ensures they'll come back for another check-up that they might otherwise neglect to consider."

Tim nodded, quite gratified. He had taught her well. Nevertheless…

"Well, do it tomorrow; for now, get back to bed before I take you there myself."

An electric shock seemed to run through Elli, and Rick blinked in surprise as she very deliberately set her cleaning supplies down on the floor, marched over to the doctor's desk, hopped up to sit at the edge, and sent him a look that was pure challenge.

With a sigh and a badly failed attempt to hide a grin, the doctor rose from his chair, grabbed his little assistant around the waist, hoisted her over his shoulder, and stalked from the room.

"I'll be back in a minute, Rick," he called over his shoulder. "Don't go anywhere."

"Sure thing, Doc," Rick agreed easily, settling down to wait.

He whistled a jaunty tune, tapping his heel absently against the floor, and trying valiantly to ignore the sounds of a scuffle from overhead. If any more questionable noises made themselves heard, Rick decided adamantly, he was leaving, mustache or no mustache.

After a long, uncomfortable series of moments, Tim emerged from the stairs, looking decidedly rumpled.

"Sorry about that, Rick," he said, shooting the sandy-haired young man a sheepish look. "She's stronger than she looks."

Rick blinked.

"Hold on; you gave her the day off because your mustache roughed her up a little? Aren't you the same guy who made her finish the workday when she broke her ankle coming downstairs?"

"Actually," Tim said, frowning, "it was a sprain, not a break. A _mild_ sprain. And I didn't give her the day off for her injuries; I gave her the day off because she stumbled back in here at about four this morning, and when she came downstairs to start work, she tried to parallel-park her desk."

"Does Elli even drive?" Rick asked, scratching his head."

"No," Tim replied flatly.

"Gotcha. So, where was she all night? I mean, I could see Karen disappearing for hours at a time – mostly because she's been doing it every night for the last week – but Elli's not much of a party girl."

"I don't know where she's been," the doctor said tersely. "It's not my business, as her employer, to know the where and when of her social life until it interferes with her job. If she wants to spend all night gallivanting with every man in town, I certainly have no right to be angry over it. To do so would be completely unprofessional. Although…you say that Karen has been doing this as well?"

"Yeah," said Rick, before adopting a shocked, vaguely intrigued expression. "You don't think they're sneaking out to meet each other again, do you?"

Tim rested his forehead briefly in his hand.

"Rick, I told you; that was a misunderstanding."

"Oh," the long-haired boy sighed sadly.

"But she mumbled something about Sakura while I was trying to pour a cup of coffee down her throat this morning to wake her up before we tried to shave _this_—" He tugged at his mustache. "—off. There was no way I was letting her handle a razor in the state she was in."

Rick nodded in complete understanding. Elli with sharp objects was a terrifying thought the rest of the time, he thought wisely. Then he frowned.

"Wait a second; Sakura?"

"Well, yes. Why?"

The young Mr. McGuire shook his head, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Karen's been spending a lot of time with Sakura lately, too. She shows up every other night to drake Popuri off to Super-Happy Amazing Funshiney Rainbow Sparkle Farm. And every time I've _seen_ Karen in the last couple weeks, she's been talking about how gorgeous and brilliant and nauseatingly perfect Sakura is."

"Mmm. Well, Elli hasn't quite put it that way, but she seems fond of Sakura, too."

"Oh, my God!" Rick exclaimed. "They're both madly in love with her! Seriously; she fights with a sickle, goes around singing about toast all the time, and they still think she's amazing. Only love can blind someone _that_ much. That's why Sakura showed up in the nick of time to rescue Karen and me: she's trying to amass a fangirl base! She's one of those crazy feminists that insist all men should die alone, so she's luring all the women of the town to her, at which point she'll reject all but her chosen few, and set to work arranging lesbian marriages for the rest of them!"

Tim caught Rick's arm as he sprang out of his chair.

"Now, Rick, we can't jump to conclusions. Our suspicions might be nothing more than a symptom of whatever gave us these…strange facial hair formations."

"Yeah, I guess that's possible," Rick agreed hesitantly. "Weird, but possible."

"I should have told you sooner," the doctor continued, staring morosely into space, "but I've been noticing some strange urges recently."

"Does this have to do with that peeping hole Elli's always talking about?" Rick interrupted. "Because no offense, man, but I really don't want to know."

His dramatic monologue moment all but buried under a crushing wave of running-gag-induced silliness, the doctor shot Rick an irritated glare.

"Not the peeping hole. No, this has more to do with an irrational anger whenever she speaks to another man. For that matter, when she speaks to _a_ man – I nearly kicked my own teeth in the other day when she came in to bring me a sandwich. And I've been entertaining thoughts recently of moving her room down to the cellar, and putting a lock on the door. From the outside."

"This might be a dumb question, but…the Clinic doesn't have a cellar, right?" Rick asked, hiding a grin.

"No," Tim replied flatly again.

"Well, this is all kinda weird, Doc," Rick admitted nervously. "I've been noticing some things like that, too. Just the other day, I ordered Ann away from my sister in a jealous rage. And that's my _sister_. I don't know what I might do if I find _Karen_ chatting with Ann."

"Or, you know, with a man," the doctor suggested, mildly sarcastic.

Rick blinked.

"Why would that bother me?"

"Forget it," Tim sighed.

"Anyway," Rick continued briskly, "facial-hair-induced paranoia or not, I think it's only fair that we tell the other guys about this."

"Rick, let's not be hasty; we don't even know that there's anything to tell them."

Rick regarded the older man very seriously.

"They deserve to know, Doc. If we tell them, they can make their own decisions. If we don't tell them, and something _is_ going on, we'll feel terrible that we didn't warn them."

"Oh, here it comes," Tim grumbled, dropping his forehead wearily to one hand and wondering briefly if the urge to devise Plans was sexually transmitted.

Rick's eye glinted dangerously.

"I say, we call a meeting!"

"Alright, fine," the doctor said snappishly. "But if Elli sneaks out while I'm not here and lets some handsome Gypsy boy spirit her off to a foreign land to be a belly-dancer, it'll be on your head. And don't expect any sympathy from me if she takes Karen with her."

Rick stared.

"I don't know, man; Karen and Elli in belly-dance outfits? I've had dreams that started that way. Goooooood dreams. Although, Mary and Ann are usually there, too."

"Rrr!" said Tim, his mustache bristling in fury. "MY Elli!"

"Hey, I can't help it!" Rick protested. "You had her giving me massages every week when I twisted my back falling off that roof last year! _You_ try having a girl rub you all over without having thoughts about her! Even though she laughed at me for calling her Karen whenever she was doing it," he finished thoughtfully.

"Rick, please, no more details," Tim interjected quickly, wondering just what sort of a doctor he was to be feeling faintly nauseous at the idea of two of his young neighbours going energetically about the business of starting a family. "There are some things a man should keep private."

Rick grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry, man." He stood. "Alright, so it's settled. We'll meet at Doug's Place tomorrow night. I'll let Gray and Cliff know."

"And Kai," the doctor added.

Rick made a face.

"Can't you tell him?"

Tim made an impatient noise.

"Rick, you're going to be right there; the three of them share a room. Why can't you just go up, shout 'meet us tomorrow night at nine', and go?"

"I'll get Gray to tell him," Rick replied quickly.

"If you dislike him so much," Tim said, hiding a grin, "do you really want to warn him that Sakura is after your sister? Anyone's better than Kai, right?"

"Yeah, I used to think that," Rick said with a laugh. "But at least Kai doesn't sing annoying songs about toast all the time and introduce me to his pet snake every time I see him."

Tim shuddered.

"There's something disturbingly Freudian in that statement…"

--------------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Aaaaaaaaand Rhianwen's nature as a Kai/Rick shipper shines through again. What can I say? They're cute. Sadly, though, not in this story. Sigh...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

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Over the weeks that followed, the most enthusiastic doomsayers of the young people would remark, more than once, that this wasn't turning out nearly as bad as they had expected. Indeed, Mary was wont to say with more than a trace of disappointment, there was hardly anything out of the ordinary going on.

Gray, to cheer her up, would remind her consolingly that Mineral Town was generally a weird place; for something to be considered weird here, it might require the involvement of alien invasion.

This, Mary would later confide to Ann or Elli, as Karen and Popuri were too busy respectively plotting against and _hanging out_ with Sakura, was not a big help.

Nevertheless, the old, splendidly tranquil dullness seemed to be returning to life in Mineral Town so entirely that, at times, Sakura would find herself laughing with the townsfolk over something that had happened long before her advent, or this or that villager would find themselves annoyed with the girl for failing to recall some long-standing town tradition that no one had remembered to mention to her.

Yes, it had been more than a little embarrassing, finding out the hard way that Topless Tuesday was _not_ a universally recognized celebratory event.

Nevertheless, she _had_ managed to make fast friends with the generally gruff and surly Gotz, who caught her by the back of her trousers as she went barrelling through Rose Square, and carried her thus unceremoniously back to her house. There, he dropped a horse blanket around her shoulders as well as possible with one hand held tightly over his eyes, and then finally managed, amid a round of soundless chuckles, that it had been years since he'd seen someone in this town do something so damn stupid.

And in _this_ town, he had assured her, that was saying something.

Completely baffled but grateful that her tiresome correspondence with that cute carpenter boy from the city whose ego seemed to require more stroking than these damn cows was no longer necessary should she choose to expand her house to add another waterslide at a later date, Sakura had simply grinned and asked if he wanted to take another run through town.

This had led to the little blonde spending the afternoon re-hanging all her framed photos, when Gotz's considerable strength had made itself apparent in the bang of the door slamming shut, and a series of thunks and rattles as the room rapidly undecorated itself.

Nevertheless, she was learning. Gradually, she was picking up more and more of this place's strange rural customs (such as the proper use of a trash bin, the art of _not_ giving people gifts they had no use for just to make space in her rucksack for "the good stuff", and the wisdom to realize when someone was hinting that it might be a good time for her to make a second use of the front door), and as she did, the occasional ripples in the comforting serenity of town life became more and more often due to…other members of the town's young adult population.

For long after Sakura had proved to the old folk, the middle-aged folk, and the wee folk of Mineral Town that she was to be trusted as a friend of years – or, at the very least, safely ignored – Karen remained convinced that something was Just Not Right. The way she was good at everything, the way everybody seemed to love her, the way she always looked fantastic in those horrible overalls and workboots…

This, in turn, quickly solidified Rick's suspicions that something was Just Not Right. Seriously; _how_ could you possibly mistake Sakura's eternal bungling for godlike skill, the tolerance tinged slightly with pity that most of the town regarded her with for worship and adoration, and an unkempt cuteness on a good day for undying glorious beauty, unless you were so madly in love with her as to be blind to her – many – faults?

And so, they plotted.

The girls quickly fell into a routine: Mondays were out for Mary, because, well, those were her days off! And since she generally spent them working on her novel, it would be kind of a shame to cut herself off just when she was getting somewhere, to go to another one of these completely idiotic conferences at Doug's Place.

Being a tactful lass when she felt like it, Mary did not, of course, phrase it thus, but Ann and Elli both knew quite well what she meant. Karen, it has since been theorized, knew as well, but simply ignored the knowledge. Popuri just sort of sang happy songs.

Thursday was likewise undoable, Karen told the other girls uneasily, because _that_ was her bar-night with Rick. And it would be pretty stupid to make the Succubus Sakura problem all the worse by neglecting him when he needed a drinking buddy most.

This struck both Mary and Popuri as so entirely sweet and romantic – for those two, anyway – that it was about three minutes before they had calmed their girlish giggles sufficiently to continue with the conversation.

Elli had dismissed Friday and Saturday nights out of hand, as they were strictly reserved for curling up in the little armchair she had managed to sneak into her room after pointing at a space behind the doctor's head and shouting, "Look! A medical emergency!"and working her way through as much of her housemate's bookshelf as she could before her mind simply broke down and began making noises.

After all, Karen had remarked with a sarcasm that had flown entirely over Elli's head, even if it had drawn snickers from Mary and Ann, the weekend's when you _really_ live it up.

As for Wednesday, Karen, Ann, and Popuri had simultaneously agreed that the meetings should not be held then. When Mary and Elli, after exchanging curious looks, had asked why, Karen had simply muttered something that sounded vaguely like "our show is on", refused to repeat it, and refused to discuss the matter any further.

And so it was that Sunday was decided upon for the designated meeting night.

Unfortunately, Sunday evening was quite popular, as times set aside for weekly plotting against an innocent, if criminally stupid, girl go.

When Rick had first gathered together the young men of the town – minus Kai, who had remained mysteriously absent for reasons that Rick, who seemed to develop the inexplicable urge to whistle innocently whenever the issue was brought up, had never bothered to disclose to anyone else – they had agreed solemnly that he was quite right to be worried about the simultaneous obsession of every girl in town with the local chicken-picker-upper-and-putter-over-there-er.

Equally unfortunately, it remains a fact not commonly known to most, but prevalent in sociological thought and research, that when two entirely separate and distinct groups of Young Folk are devising Plans on the same day each week, within the same time bracket, and at the same place, they will inevitably collide.

Especially unfortunate was the fact that this case was not to be the exception.

----------------------------------------------------

"Mmm," Mary murmured happily, snuggling her pillow closer and burrowing cosily into her nest of blankets.

Through a half-awake haze, a shock of bright red hair drifts before her vision, bright blue eyes sparkling down at her.

"Gray?" she murmurs sleepily. "Why are you all the way over there?"

"Uh, wrong, and I guess you're not as innocent as you seem!"

At this statement, uttered in a voice far louder – and more female – than Gray generally got, Mary gave a startled shriek and leapt out of bed. She glared at Ann as she scrambled for her comforter to wrap tightly around her nightgown-clad self.

"What are you doing here!"

"Your mom let me in," Ann explained cheerfully. "She said you should be getting up now, anyway."

"Ann," Mary whined, "I could have slept for another _hour_ and still had time to get dressed, have breakfast, and open the Library by ten. I'm tired! And it's _your_ fault!"

"Hold on!" Ann protested hotly. "Why was it my fault!"

"Because _you_ had us camped outside Sakura's house, and the Inn, and the Clinic, and the Poultry Farm all night!"

"Uh, I thought that was Karen," Ann said, scratching her head.

"Oh, right," Mary said thoughtfully. "Sorry, Ann; you two kind of look alike when I'm operating on three hours of sleep."

"Aww, poor baby," Ann crooned, cuddling Mary close and stroking her hair soothingly.

Wondering sleepily how on earth Ann's shoulder could be so nice and soft when Ann herself was so thin, Mary snuggled contentedly, and then lifted her head to glare at her friend.

"I still partially blame you."

"Come on, why would you blame me?"

Mary's glare deepened.

"Because, Ann, Karen probably wouldn't be acting like this if you didn't keep egging her on."

Ann grinned, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

"What can I say? Sometimes, you have to make your own fun in a small town." A pause. "Hey, speaking of that, Karen wants us all at the Inn tonight."

"Not another meeting," Mary groaned in despair.

Ann peered sternly at the bespectacled girl, hands on her hips.

"Mary! It's not that bad!"

"It will be," Mary predicted gloomily. "It's only going to be so long before almost a season and a half of sneaking around and spying and getting absolutely no sleep and breaking and entering and going through people's things in the middle of the night is going to blow up in our faces."

Ann laughed easily.

"Don't worry, Mary; I've got a plan."

"Ann," Mary growled warningly.

"Right, right, bad choice of words," Ann said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head again. "What I meant is, I know what we've got to do: we just keep playing along with Karen until she sees for herself that Sakura's not really after all the guys! I figure, it'll just sort of die down on its own after that."

"I don't know," Mary sighed, flopping back on the bed. "That seems needlessly optimistic to me."

-------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey!"

Kai and Popuri turned from their perch at the edge of the dock, bare feet dangling into the water, to glance in the direction of this cry.

"Oh, great," the purple-headed lad sighed resignedly as he turned back to the water, already bracing himself for another stupid confrontation. "I thought it was too good to last that he hasn't been bugging us this summer. Geez, what's with him, anyway? He's got the second-hottest—" Here, he broke off and winked at Popuri, who failed utterly to look furious and kicked a playful splash of water at him. "—girl in town trying to get him in bed, but somehow, he doesn't have anything better to do than follow us around all day."

"Rick!" the pink-haired beauty at his side wailed, climbing to her feet and letting her skirt fall back into place. "How did you find us?"

Rick scratched his head as he slowed to a stop on the pier.

"Geez, Popuri, you come here every week. I didn't really think you were trying to hide."

"Okay, okay, let's get on with it," the other boy grumbled. "If you want, I can even do your part for you. How dare you toy with my sister, you cad; Popuri, he's trouble, now come back home; yadda yadda yadda."

"Uh…back off? She came to see me on her own?" Rick said hesitantly, blinking in puzzlement. "Sorry," he shrugged when the other two stared at him. "I thought that's what we were doing."

"I was just about to come home now, anyway," Popuri huffed, pouting pointedly at her brother before turning to Kai. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Hey, Popuri, I wasn't…oh, well, she's gone," Rick finished with a shrug. "Anyway, I came to talk to you about something."

"Is this going to involve someone bleeding?"

"Well, not one of us," Rick replied carefully.

"Okay, now I'm interested!" Kai proclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "What's up?"

"You know that there's a new girl in town, right?"

"Oh, yeah; Sakura, right? What a nutcase."

Rick nodded grimly.

"I know. But apparently, women like crazy people. Even crazy women. And apparently, _this_ crazy woman has some kind of stake in bringing a halt to the population growth in Mineral Town."

"Uh…what?" Kai asked, scratching his bandana.

"The four of us – Gray and the new guy, Cliff, and the doctor and I – have noticed that, over the past two seasons, since she moved here, all the girls – Karen and Mary and Elli and Ann, and heck, even Popuri – have been talking about her constantly and following her around everywhere. It's like she's got them all bewitched," he finished with a mournful sigh.

Kai's eyes narrowed.

"Rick I'm gonna be honest with you; normally, I'm not big on telling people who they can and can't see. But turning every eligible girl in town into a lesbian is different. If it was only one or two, I could deal with it. Personally, I always thought that Mary and Elli were girlfriends, anyway. But _every single girl_? I don't know; that's a pretty serious allegation."

"It is, but it isn't unfounded. We've been meeting all summer already to discuss the matter, and the evidence is overwhelmingly against Miss Sakura's honour."

"Hey, wait a second!" Kai exclaimed. "You've been meeting all summer, and no one told me? Geez, Rick, summer's half over!"

"Don't blame me," Rick said emphatically. "I asked Gray to pass on the message."

"You mean, that night that you came up to our room, and said you had an important message for _everyone but Kai_?" the dark-haired boy asked, glaring resentfully.

Rick grinned sheepishly.

"What can I say? Old habits die hard. So, are you in or not?"

"Oh, I'm in," Kai replied immediately. "I want to see what kind of evidence you blockheads have for this crazy conspiracy theory of yours."

"You will," Rick called ominously over his shoulder, starting from the beach. "You will."

Once the sandy-haired boy had gone, Kai shook his head.

"Yup, everyone here's still nuts." Then he grinned. "It's good to be back."

Then he froze again, eyes growing wide with disbelief.

"Did Rick have a _mustache_?"

--------------------------------------------------------

"…and then he said that I should stop wearing red, because it clashed with my hair! So then _I _said that he could give me fashion advice when he stopped dressing like a circus clown threw up a pirate. So then he pretended to be really, really hurt, and said he was only trying to help. I asked what he thought I should wear then, and the jerk gave me this big, stupid grin and said he thought a black vinyl miniskirt would be nice!"

"Imagine that," Elli said with a longing gaze at the stack of work sitting on the edge of her desk, just waiting to be done.

"I told him he could take his own fashion advice, and he gave me this even bigger grin and said not to _tempt_ him!"

Elli sighed.

"Popuri, if Kai is such a big, creepy jerk, why do you spend every Sunday with him all summer?"

Popuri rolled her eyes and made an impatient noise.

"C'mon, Elli, when a girl says mean things like that about a boy, it means she _likes_ him!"

"Maybe when she's May's age."

"No! When she's my age, too! And what about Karen? She says _horrible_ things about Rick sometimes, but she still calls me her future sister-in-law to strangers."

"Yes, but Karen is…special," Elli pointed out carefully. "But I'm glad you and Kai are having fun, anyway. In fact," she added hopefully, "maybe you should go see him right now – he probably misses you."

"I couldn't interrupt him _now_," Popuri said, aghast. "He told me he's going to spend the evening reinventing the menu for the Beach Cafe – he'd be furious if I broke his concentration! He might not seem like it, but Kai's a really hard worker."

"Is that all?" the brunette whimpered, peeking at the gap in the curtain and praying for an angry boss to come storming out, commanding her to stop slacking off and earn her pay for once.

"Oh, no," Popuri replied very seriously. "He's also cute, and funny, and sweet, and smart, and cool, and a really, really good cook. And he throws the best parties!"

"Ow!" the girls heard Jeff yelp from the street as the sarcasm thick in Elli's voice sailed easily over Popuri's head and out the window. "Sasha! I think I'm bleeding! Oh, no! I'm going to die! Oh, the humanity!"

Elli flopped facedown onto her desk.

"What do you think the odds are that these stupid gags will stop sometime soon?" she asked, the words muffled by a fairly hefty stack of papers.

"You ask for the impossible, little nurse," Popuri replied solemnly. Then she giggled. "That's what Kai always says when I ask him if Rick will ever stop pestering us. Except he doesn't say 'little nurse', because, y'know, I'm _not _a nurse. He usually says _little chicken-farmer_."

The 'little nurse' in question sighed again, giving her head a quick shake to clear it after the stream of chatter that her friend was energetically using to befuddle her into a more pliant and receptive mental state in preparation of a sales pitch for the town's latest cult, or something. Then she smiled up at the pretty pink-haired girl.

"How's your mother feeling today, Popuri?"

"Mom's fine," Popuri replied, frowning confusedly. "Why?"

"I thought you were here to pick up her medication for her," Elli said edgily, nudging a little brown paper parcel toward her friend.

"Oh, that!" Popuri giggled. Then she leaned closer, motioning for the brunette to do the same. "Actually," she whispered conspiratorially, "that was just a clever ruse. I have an important message from Karen. We're all meeting tonight at…You-Know-Where, to discuss…You-Know-Who."

"I've been fearing this day ever since the last meeting," Elli said curiously, "and now that it's happening, it feels strangely anticlimactic."

The younger girl shook her head.

"You say such weird things, Elli. I think hanging around the doctor all the time is having a bad effect."

Elli brightened as this perfectly acceptable, perfectly convenient ticket out of any further conversation on the many wonders of Kai was unexpectedly dropped in her lap.

"Um, speaking of the doctor," she said, carefully shouting the last two words toward the gap in the curtain, "I don't think he would like me to spend the entire day neglecting my job to chat with my friends. You _know_ he's still a little grouchy about the mustache."

"Elli?" Tim called, poking his head into the Clinic's main room. "Did you call me?"

"Oh, dear," the girl behind the desk sighed theatrically. "He's caught us." She smiled sheepishly at the dark-haired man. "I'm sorry, Doctor. Popuri was just picking up her mother's medicine – she's on her way now. I'll get back to work immediately."

The doctor laughed.

"It's alright, Elli; I know you're young, and every young girl needs some time to visit with her friends."

"No!" She blushed at the curious stares of her boss and her long-time friend. "Um, what I meant is, we all have to make sacrifices for our work, right? I can't neglect all the work we have to do, just because it would be more fun to talk to Popuri and hear all about Kai."

She cast a meaningful look at the doctor, carefully drawing out the 'all'. He simply laughed again.

"Elli, you know it's been dead around here lately. Alright," he amended with a sigh as both girls giggled. "Bad choice of words. Anyway, I really doubt that Mineral Town will fall into instant chaos if you talk with your friends a while longer."

"Hi!" a cheerful voice called from the doorway.

"Oh, hi, Sakura!" Elli greeted happily, peeking around Popuri at the blonde skipping across the Clinic.

The doctor tensed.

"Alright, everybody out!" he barked. "Elli has a lot of work to do, and her sociable nature has already cost us enough in lost time."

Popuri blinked.

"But…I thought you just said—"

"Out!"

"But I just wanted some more Bodigizers…" Sakura whimpered sadly, gazing longingly in Elli's direction.

Ah, when her eyes gazed upon the pretty nurse's sweet smile, she could fairly _taste_ the energizing goodness of the wondrous elixir that could be found lurking somewhere around that desk. The force that had dominated her thoughts for the better part of the summer.

And the spring.

At least, for every second that they hadn't dwelt firmly on toast. And _Toast!_

The doctor, who saw only a sunburned little blonde playboy (who just happened to be female) staring lustily at _his_ assistant, bristled.

"Rrr!" he observed casually. "Mine!"

Sakura pouted.

"Share the wealth, man! I'm sure you get plenty, working here everyday!"

Elli gave a startled, vaguely excited yelp of pain as her boss's hands clamped down tightly on her shoulders, mussing up her little shoulder frills _horribly_, as she would later lament to everyone who would listen.

"I. Don't. Share," the doctor was meanwhile growling at the little farmer.

"Greedy," Sakura muttered. "Well, congratulations, mister! You've just lost yourself a customer! Just see if I ever get sick in this town again! C'mon Popuri; let's go to the Supermarket and eat chocolate until we explode. I'll buy this time."

"Really!" Popuri squealed delightedly.

"That's right," Tim muttered, eyes narrowed, as the girls started for the door. "Keep walking."

Then, the instant the door closed behind the two happily chattering girls, his glare lifted and relaxed. He looked down at the brunette whose eyes had become mysteriously glassy, and her breathing mysteriously short.

"Let's get back to work, then, shall we?"

Elli blinked.

"But…um…you just told me there _was_ no more work to do."

The doctor blinked.

"Oh, right," he said sadly. Then he brightened. "Are you any good at poker?"

"I don't know," Elli confessed. "I've never tried."

"My favourite kind of opponent," Tim said with a fond smile, swatting away the vague notion that this might be a good time to suggest that they make it _strip_.

The little nurse frowned.

"Why?"

"Never mind," Tim said innocently.

Elli looked shyly up at him through her lashes, and then recovered her courage sufficiently to send him a beaming smile.

"Well, anyway, Doctor, thank-you for getting Popuri out of here. I love her dearly, but I thought I was going to go insane if I had to listen to any more of her silly, dopey fawning over Kai. I _hate_ when girls do that."

"I can understand that," he admitted with what she had come to think of as his _thoughtful look_.

She gave an internal giddy, giggly squeal of delight, inwardly making shiny-eyes up at the tall man and inwardly clasping her hands under her chin in a pose of girlish adoration.

_He's so dreamy…_

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Sasha sighed as she settled an ice pack carefully over the quickly forming lump on the back of her husband's head.

It just figured, didn't it, that she had been trying to get him outside for a nice walk for weeks now, and when he finally did step outside for longer than it took to get to the Clinic or the Church, he'd get hit in the head by someone's rampant sarcasm.

Rampant, but clearly not very subtle, if it had managed to leave poor Jeff with such a bump. This author ought to be ashamed of herself.

"Do—do you think I should go to the Clinic?" Jeff asked around a gulping sob and several sniffles. "The doctor might not have an appointment free, but I could always have little Elli look at it."

She cuddled him carefully, wrapping one arm around him and pulling him back against her chest, brushing dark hair gently off his forehead.

"Oh, honey, I don't think you need to bother them over at the Clinic, when they've been so busy lately. It's only a little sarcasm. Sticks and stones, you know."

"But it did hurt!"

"I'll take your mind off of it," Sasha assured him with an inverted wink.

Jeff grinned.

"Okay! After all, you're never too sick for…"

"Chocolate cookies!" his wife finished jubilantly.

The grocer sighed, disappointed.

"Oh, well. I guess it's better than nothing."

Sasha was on the verge of inquiring, confused and a little hurt, exactly what was wrong with her chocolate cookies, when a shout that sounded distinctly Karenesque drew her attention toward the window. Followed quickly by her husband, she hurried to the front room of the grocery store, and then to the front door.

Upon throwing open the door, she and Jeff, peeking timidly around her, were treated to the curious sight of Karen and Rick each attempting, simultaneously, to drag the other down the street, away from a monumentally confused-looking Sakura, and an equally confused-looking Popuri.

"Um...why is everyone shouting?" Jeff asked vaguely, rather distracted by his wife's firm, stoft posterior beneath his hand, resting there allegedly to steady himself, because after all, he _was_ still feeling a little dizzy with that bump and all.

Sasha sighed again as Karen and Rick exchanged very similar sounding, very irate exclamations along the lines of _I-can't-believe-she's-got-you-too_ and _you-gullible-moron-you're-just-part-of-her-collection_ and _I'll-rip-her-ears-off-if-you-don't-stop-mooning-over-her_.

"Who knows?" the lovely blonde finally sighed despairingly. "It's always something, with those two."

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End Notes: D'oh! I'd planned to do the guys' meeting this chapter, but the word count just sort of ran away with me. I guess it's harder than I thought to give everyone attention, while focusing obsessively on Elli and the doctor like the good little psychotic fangirl that I am. :o)

Oh, well. Thanks for reading! As always, comments, suggestions, criticism, etc. are greatly appreciated.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

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"Mary!" Ann called cheerfully, trotting over to the table tucked cozily into the corner of the inn's main room farthest from the stairs, and occupied only by one dark-haired bespectacled young lady and a hefty stack of hardcovers. "You're here early."

"Hi, Ann," Mary greeted with a slightly forced smile. "I wanted to get here before Dad – I was hoping I might be able to blend in, so he wouldn't notice me."

"Right," the pretty redhead grinned. "Because nothing's more inconspicuous than a bookworm in a bar with a huge pile of books.

Mary pouted, cheeks flushing pinkly.

"I didn't want them to get lonely if we took longer than usual."

"You're weird," Ann informed her gently as Saibara danced past in a propeller beanie, juggling three rubber chickens. "I think you might be the weirdest person in town."

"Yeah, little Mary's a weird one, alright," Duke agreed from across the room, where he was busily puffing on a pipe, sending shimmering soap bubbles out the top with every puff.

Mary glowered darkly over the top of her stack of books, the intimidation factor of the gesture rather lost amid the inherent cuteness that had been her greatest irritation ever since she had been turned away from a career as a bouncer.

"If it wasn't so blatantly ignoring a lot of things about the current situation, I would say this wasn't funny anymore."

But before Mary could go on and explain – loudly and at great length – to the terrified (or perhaps merely rather amused) patrons of Doug's Place why exactly this wasn't funny anymore, fuelled by the bitterness and annoyance of the past two seasons, the door swung open and a little blonde, clad in a long grey trench coat, a bowler hat, a scarf over her face, and a pair of dark sunglasses ambled toward the counter.

"Hey there, stranger," she greeted Doug in a voice that tried to be sultry but came across as merely sort of goofy. "Let a girl use your phone? I'm prepared to pay, of course."

"Sure, Sakura," Doug laughed. "That'll be ten gold."

"T-ten!" she sputtered indignantly. "What kind of rip-off business are you running here!"

"The kind where you have to pay for your goods and services," Doug snorted.

"Okay, fine," the bad-spy-movie-clad little blonde grumbled, shoving a bundle of money resentfully over the counter at the bartender. "But it's highway robbery."

"Think of it like…a tollbooth," Doug grinned, taking the money and pushing the phone toward her.

Sakura glared, snatching up the receiver and punching in the numbers viciously.

"This phone better get me a direct line to the Harvest Goddess, for this price."

"See that?" Mary was meanwhile whispering to Ann. "What do you think?"

"Hmm," Ann hmmed, peering carefully at the farmer chatting happily away on the phone. "She's sure whiny today."

"Do you think we should get a little closer and try to hear what she's saying?" Mary prompted, patience slipping.

Ann pulled a face.

"I don't know, Mary; is it really right to listen in on her phone calls?"

Mary took a deep, calming breath.

"Of course. How silly of me. Just because we've been following her home, camping outside her window, peeking IN her window while she's changing—"

"Hey, that's just you!" Ann protested.

"—following her back into town in the mornings, and going through her underwear drawer, why would I possibly think that listening in on her phone conversation, which she's having – loudly – in a public place is alright?"

"Well, as long as you know you were out of line," said the eternally cheerful and vaguely suicidal Ann.

"Go!" Mary barked, shoving Ann toward the counter.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Ann groused, already sauntering across the bar in an exceedingly overdone, badly feigned version of a casual demeanour. "Hey, Dad," she greeted, leaning against the bar, inches from Sakura and her phone call, again trying for casual and failing miserably.

Doug regarded his daughter suspiciously.

"Ann," he began slowly, eyes jumping from her to Mary, who shrank behind her stack of hardcovers, to Sakura, who beamed cheerfully amid the whistle of Doug's suspicion flying completely over her head. "What are you doing?"

Ann crossed her arms, looking outraged.

"I'm visiting with my dear, hard-working father! Isn't a daughter allowed to visit with her father? We don't spend enough time together, anyway!"

"You live here, Ann," Doug reminded her, eyes darting even more furiously between the three girls.

"Aw," Sakura was meanwhile pouting into the phone. "I kind of wanted to meet in Rose Square – that always feels like our special place." A long pause, during which the blonde's expression turned both annoyed and confused. "What do you mean, Goddess Pond is a better backdrop for a plot twist?" She pouted again. "Okay, fine. I'll see you at the pond in an hour." She smiled dopily. "I love you, too, Snuggle-Pumpkin…No, I love _you_ more!" Another pause. "Okay, bye, sweetie."

Hanging up the phone, she gave a long, blissful sigh, sent Ann and Doug a beaming, yet completely absent smile, and then proceeded to waltz out of the room.

"I wonder if Karen would consider this 'something she needs to know about'," Ann pondered aloud, chin in one hand. "Hey! Mary! Sakura was talking to someone named Snuggle-Pumpkin, and they made plans to meet at Harvest Goddess Pond in an hour! Do you think that's important?"

"What!" Mary yelped, springing from her chair and bolting across the room.

"I know," Ann said emphatically. "What kind of name is Snuggle-Pumpkin for a kid?"

"No! Of course it's important!"

"If only because someone should really call Social Services about those parents. Naming a kid something like that has to qualify as child abuse."

"For goodness sakes, Ann! Let's just go find Karen."

"Mary, wait!" Ann protested as she found her arm seized and it and the rest of her dragged towards the door. "What about all your books? Are you just going to leave them?"

Mary whimpered sadly. It hurt to do it, to leave her precious, wonderful books there in that smoky room with all the drunks, where anything could happen to them. But she and Ann were on a mission. For the good of their friends, their love-lives, and their friends' love-lives.

Without the acutely crucial actions that they were about to take, she might very well end up forced to endure seeing that sweet, shy, goofy smile beneath that cryptically-lettered hat directed at another girl; might no longer feel her heart beat faster until she was on the verge of passing out at approximately 1:30 every afternoon when she heard his footsteps just outside the door of the Library; might no longer have the delight of talking over their favourite books together.

Not to mention, if they didn't do anything, they would never make Karen shut up about it already.

That was worth a little sacrifice.

Wasn't it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright, is everyone here?" Rick was meanwhile asking, his mustache waving slightly in the breeze as he paced back and forth across Cliff, Gray, and Kai's shared room, rented out for the purpose of A Meeting.

"Well, there are five shmucks sitting around here for another stupid meeting," Gray replied sourly. "And since no more than five people in any one town can possibly be this stupid, I'd say that's everyone."

"Great," Kai said enthusiastically amid the crash of Gray's point sailing over his head, out the window, and knocking over a garbage can. "If we're all here, let's get started. I wanna see what you guys have been up to all year."

"Sitting around the bar like a bunch of conspiracy theorist idiots, making sure that even if every girl in town hasn't turned into a lesbian, they will now," the behatted boy muttered, dropping his head to his hand in despair.

"That isn't true," Rick said sternly. "We're working as a body to identify and neutralize a threat."

"And the threat is…Sakura, right?" Kai said hesitantly.

"Yeah! She's trying to steal our girlfriends!" Cliff interjected, startling the other four young men, and then going immediately back to moping dejectedly at the room's small round table.

"So we believe at this point in time, based on the evidence we have gathered," the doctor added quickly from the chair next to him.

"Which is?" the maybe-haired young man prompted, sitting up from his position reclining on the middle bed.

"Have you noticed how quick she was to befriend all the girls in town?" Rick demanded.

Kai scratched his bandana.

"Well, Popuri seems to like her a lot, but doesn't Karen hate her?"

"_Hate_ her?" Rick echoed. "She's always going on about how amazing and gorgeous and brilliant and talented she is! She accuses me of being in love with Sakura every two seconds! Now, think about it: Sakura's an idiot, but Karen thinks she's a hero. You can only be that totally off base with someone you're in love with."

"And even then," Cliff sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe Sakura has Karen hypnotized or something. I should ask Ann about it; it looks like they spend a lot of time together."

"That's because they're drawn together by a mutual desire to be accepted into Sakura's harem," the bespectacled young man informed him, swiveling about to pace the length of the room again. "And why don't you ask the doctor how much time Sakura's been spending at the Clinic lately?"

"But…couldn't she be there to see you, Doc?" Kai protested. "Don't sell yourself short, man; even if it's only because they're rotten gold-diggers, a lot of girls would love to marry a doctor."

"She's been there everyday," Tim said tersely, his mustache beginning to bristle slightly, "but I've only spoken to her about three or four times."

"Wow," Kai said emphatically. He shook his head and rested a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "You gotta put a stop to this. She's practically making fun of you, not only distracting your employees and wasting time that rightfully belongs to you, but stealing your woman! Using her feminine wiles on a sweet, unsuspecting, innocent girl!"

"With a peep-hole that she uses to watch him undress every night," Rick added with a snicker. "Yup, that's Elli; pure as freshly fallen snow."

"If Sakura even lets her use the peeping hole anymore," Cliff said darkly. "She's already got Karen; I bet Elli's next. After that, who knows?"

"I don't know," Kai said skeptically. "Popuri likes her and all, but I think they're just friends."

"That's how it begins," Tim said, so entirely deadpan that even he wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not. "The best of lovers start as the best of friends. Just look at Karen and Rick."

"Not that Karen and Rick'll be much of anything if we don't do something soon," Rick himself said gloomily. "Who knows? It might already be too late."

"Man, snap out of it!" Kai exclaimed, springing from the bed and shaking a very startled sandy-haired youth firmly by the shoulders. "You were so gung-ho about saving the girls from the clutches of this hoe-happy succubus, and now you're ready to give up? Geez, maybe Karen _is_ better off as Wife #4 or something."

Rick was on the verge of protesting indignantly that he was certainly _not_ giving up, and Karen wasn't going to be anyone's Wife Number Anything if it wasn't _his_ Wife #1 and Only, when a clatter of chair against wall brought his attention immediately off of the guy he had reconciled himself to someday having for a brother-in-law, if only because Sakura had shown him that hey, it could be worse.

Gray, whose rather bizarre gesture of standing up angrily had sent the chair shooting back into the room's prettily papered wall, punctuated it by slamming his hand down on the table.

"Okay, you guys are all off your rockers! Look, Tim, I think you're underestimating Elli, and Rick, you're probably underestimating that girl you like...what's-her-name—"

"Karen," Rick interjected through gritted teeth.

"Right, Karen," Gray agreed absently. "Anyway, if your girlfriends are that fickle, I guess I feel bad for you, but crap, I'm just glad Mary's not like that. That's where your stupid _theories_ fall apart: Mary hasn't even mentioned Sakura."

As though on extremely predictable cue, the door slammed open, and a pretty, dark-haired, bespectacled girl in a blue pleated jumper-dress burst into the room and immediately collapsed beneath the weight of an armload of books.

"Mary!" Gray exclaimed, across the room in an instant to help her. "What happened?"

"Gray," she gasped. "I have to go. Please take care of my books, okay?"

"You're...you're trusting _me_ with your books?" the redheaded boy breathed, awestruck at this great honour.

"Yes, Gray," Mary replied gently, gathering up the stack and pressing the tomes into his hands. "I trust you completely."

"Why don't you just leave them with Sakura, huh?" Cliff interjected in another surprising display of actually, like, _talking_.

Mary frowned, confused.

"W-well, I don't know Sakura that well, and I don't want to ask a stranger to book-sit. And it's kind of funny that you mention her, because I'm actually on my way to find her." She sent Gray a pleading look. "So you'll take care of them?"

Gray smiled, a little forced.

"Sure, Mary. No problem."

A sweet, beaming smile, and she was gone. Gray stared, disbelieving and heartbroken, at the door for several seconds.

"That's it," Rick said softly. "That's all of them."

"That evil seductress has left no girl un-brainwashed," Kai said venomously.

"One girl isn't enough for her; she has to interfere with everyone's relationships," Tim said helplessly.

"Mary...not you, too," Gray said brokenly.

"She took our jobs!" Cliff said unexpectedly.

Rick, Kai, Tim, and Gray stared.

"Uh...what?" Kai finally ventured.

"Sorry," Cliff said, miserably sheepish, shrinking back into himself. "It seemed to fit."

---------------------------------------------------

"Argh!" Karen noted curiously as she rebounded off the distinctly Ann-shaped blockage in the doorway.

"Ow!" Ann rejoined slightly snippily as she rebounded off the corresponding Karen-shaped blockage approaching from the other direction.

"Ann! Mary! Were you two trying to skip out on the meeting?" Popuri demanded reproachfully, looking up at the two girls from her position crouched on the ground next to Karen, repeatedly poking the sorta-blonde in an attempt to get a response.

"I'm glad we ran into you two," Mary began breathlessly, helping Popuri haul Karen from the ground.

"I'm not," Ann interjected from several feet away, where she was sprawled out on the floor of the inn. "Ow…"

Ignoring Ann, Mary grasped a dazed Karen's wrist and tugged her away from the inn.

"We have to get to Goddess Pond. Quickly!"

Popuri, in the process of dragging Ann to her feet, blinked.

"Um…why?"

"Sakura's meeting her mystery sweetie there in an hour," Ann replied with a weak grin, leaning gratefully into the pink-haired girl's supporting arm.

"What! Why didn't you tell us!" Karen demanded.

Ann looked at Mary. Mary looked at Ann. Moments passed.

"Geez, Karen, I kind of thought that's what we were doing," Ann finally admitted.

"Oh, forget it," Karen grumbled, quickening her pace and dragging Mary after her in an amusing show of role-reversal. "We have to get there, fast!"

"That's what Mary said," Ann grinned as she and Popuri trotted after their friends. "She got so excited, she almost left her books behind, all alone, in a public place!"

Popuri's eyes widened.

"Whoa…she really is in love with Gray!"

"Actually, I ended up leaving them with Gray," Mary explained, puffing slightly as she broke into a run to keep up with Karen's quick, long strides.

"That's good!" Popuri chirped. "I guess you know he's safe; congratulations, Mary!"

Mary frowned thoughtfully, slowing a bit and dragging Karen with her.

"It was kind of strange, you know; it looked like all the boys were upstairs with him. Cliff and Kai were both in, and I'm pretty sure I saw Rick and the doctor. I could be wrong," she added hurriedly. "I dropped one of my books on the way up, and one of the pages got bent, and sometimes when you're under great emotional strain, you begin hallucinating."

"Okay, if all the guys were there, who is Sakura going to meet?" Ann demanded explosively.

"We're going to find that out," Karen reminded her through gritted teeth. "But I have a theory…"

----------------------------------------------------

Elli, meanwhile, was frantic.

The half hour she'd spent in good, solid moping mode when the doctor had hurried out for an early appointment that he'd avoided telling her about, eyes shifting nervously, was catching up with her now, as she found herself with fifteen last-minute things to do before closing the Clinic up for the evening, and five minutes to do it all and still meet Karen and the others at Doug's Place.

Drat it, she was not in the mood for this today.

Logically, she knew that this was exactly the kind of thing that they were trying to prevent and fix, the doctor running off like that and refusing to tell her what for, since he was obviously meeting with Sakura and just trying to spare her feelings.

But when the most appealing thing in the world is the idea of going upstairs and sniffling into a hot bath for a while before crawling exhaustedly into bed, one's fighting spirit tends not to be in top-notch order.

"Maybe everyone else will forget and I can come home early," she sighed with a sort of grim consolation as she locked the door behind her and started to the inn. "And if Karen yells at me for being late, I'll ram the entire bar somewhere extremely uncomfortable."

She moped and pouted some more.

"I hate spending money on drinks every Sunday night, too; why do Mary and I always have to pay, just because we're the only ones who earn a wage? For that matter, why on earth isn't Ann getting paid? Or at least, staff discounts for her and a few select friends to make the matter of idiotically plotting revenge against someone almost as stupid as we're all acting, a little more pleasant?"

Making her mind up firmly to tell her redheaded friend in plain, solid terms that she was being taken and shouldn't accept that treatment from anyone, even her father, Elli hurried around the corner onto the road leading up to the Inn, just as four agitated, noisily chattering young women that may or may not have been her four best friends in the world, scampered around the corner at the other side of the street, leading away from the Inn.

And somewhere, in a dark, damp, forebidding cave, a blood-red crystal beneath which was a rough wooden plaque bearing the name **Acme Plot Device,**glowed brightly, burning with the fires of a thousand contrivances...

---------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Okay; no promises, but I think the plot might be starting to wind down. Or is that...up? Well, anyway, a lot of stuff is going to happen that I've been trying to fit in for the last seven chapters, and then the plot will meander aimlessly for twelve more chapters, until I finally just tack on a really dumb, awkward ending that makes no sense, and try to pass it off as having some artistic purpose. Go me!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

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The Harvest Goddess, the spirit of joy and happiness, the protector and patron of Mineral Town, stared in complete and utter bemusement at the young ladies before her, each bearing an armload of flowers.

"Umm..."

"I know it sounds crazy," Karen began, completely unhesitating, because, as Mary would later confide to her mother, it took a lot more than a goddess to derail Karen when she got like this. "But it's absolutely true."

"A new girl in town," the rainbow-clad deity summarized flatly, "who is trying to make all the boys fall in love with her, just to be mean."

"Yes," Karen confirmed.

"Geez, when she puts it like that, it sounds really dumb, doesn't it?" Ann whispered aside to Mary, who nodded emphatically, and then elbowed Popuri, who was essentially ignoring the conversation in favour of decorating her hair liberally with flowers.

"But we think she's decided on a Number 1," Karen continued, ignoring the other three and their antics and leaning closer to the beautiful woman in the pond. "She's meeting a guy here tonight, and it's none of our guys."

"Karen thinks it's the Kappa," Ann added helpfully, only to be whapped soundly with Pink Cat Flower for her troubles.

"Even though nobody's bothered to wonder how Sakura was talking to the Kappa on the telephone," Mary noted under her breath, only to be ignored, as was very often the fate of all those who attempted to inject common sense into blatant silliness.

"Really," the Harvest Goddess said thoughtfully. "He hasn't mentioned any human girl to me since the tiny, noisy one that fell into the lake years ago."

"Well, he _is_ kind of unfriendly," Popuri said knowingly as Ann turned miserably red and glowered at the world in general.

The Goddess sighed.

"Listen, girls, I think playing with people's emotions is a terrible thing to do, and I don't like the thought of someone in this town doing it any more than the rest of you. But unless we're going to manipulate right back, I don't think there's anything we can do. And two wrongs don't make a right, you know," she finished in a sing-song half-giggle.

"And what if she marries the Kappa?" Karen asked lightly, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised slightly. "With all due respect, I thought you'd object a little more than _this_."

"And why did you think that?" the Goddess asked in a voice that tried to be pleasat, but more resembled sugar-sweet danger.

"Oh, come on!" Ann giggled. "You're all the way out here, no one else to talk to, there's gotta be _something_ going on!"

The Harvest Goddess grit her teeth as four silly little girls giggled over the possibilities of her love-life. Finally, she rolled her eyes and pointed to the heavens. A bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, burning it to the ground.

"Alright, alright, enough! Is the Harvest Goddess gonna have to smite a bitch?" she demanded, glaring at each girl in turn.

"Sorry, Ma'am," four badly frightened young women chorused together.

Casually re-growing the tree she had just reduced to ash, the rainbow-ey deity smiled smugly.

"Thank-you." Then she sighed. "Do you ladies have any...oh, I don't know..._evidence_ to back up your allegations?"

"Look, all five of us have seen the signs," Karen said very seriously. "The guys are all sneaking off at weird times to do weird things, and she goes to visit them nearly every day—"

"Hold on," the Goddess interjected, frowning and counting the four glossy little heads yet again. "You said five? There are only four of you here."

"What? That's crazy," Karen protested. "There's me, Ann, Mary, Popuri, and...aw, dammit." She glanced over her shoulder with a sheepish grin. "Anyone seen Elli?"

-------------------------------------------------------

"Where _are_ they!" a distraught little nurse was, at approximately that same moment, demanding tearfully.

Doug shook his head helplessly, eyes warm with sympathy.

"Sorry, Elli, I haven't seen any of them in quite a while now."

"This is so typical," she fumed. "They insist on dragging me out of the nice, safe, warm Clinic, and then they don't even show up!"

The bearded man frowned.

"That doesn't sound much like Mary to me..."

"Well, okay, not Mary," Elli amended. "But everyone else! Oh, and except for Ann," she added hurriedly when she recalled that the strong resemblance between Doug and her redheaded friend was more than just coincidence.

"Right," he grinned. Then he grew sober. So to speak. "Look, Elli, I'm sorry to do this when you're already upset, but if you're gonna sit here..."

"Alright, fine," she sighed resignedly. "I'll have a glass of milk."

Doug quirked an eyebrow, hiding a smile.

"Sure you don't want something stronger, to calm you down?"

Elli stared at the redheaded man, aghast. The idea of using alcohol as a means of escape from life's little catastrophes was, to her, one of the most terribly immature, not to mention utterly stupid, things possible to do without the involvement of whoopie cushions, silly-string, or Tom Green.

This had been solidified a few years ago, from faint unease at Karen's excessive drinking and its possible effects on the poor girl, to a fervent vow to never, ever do the same, when she had found herself compelled to half-carry her employer upstairs following an evening of conversation and companionship with Carter. She had been woken up a little after midnight by the sound of a repeated thud from downstairs, and had crept, nightgown-clad and wielding a curtain rod, to the landing to see what on earth was causing it.

The sight of the doctor walking repeatedly into the wall next to the staircase, yelping in pain, and then trying again was one that would both haunt both of them for the rest of their days, particularly once the doctor discovered that Elli's presence of mind had allowed her to run back to her room for a camera, thus providing her with all the blackmail material a sweet-natured, utterly ruthless little nurse could ever need.

Ruthlessness aside, she had eventually stopped pointing and laughing, and hurried downstairs to guide him onto the staircase, and up to his room, only swerving away from her own room with an air of great self-sacrifice at the last minute.

The next morning had proved a terribly embarrassing ordeal for both, the doctor because, while requiring Elli's help to run the Clinic smoothly and efficiently was one thing, requiring the sweet little brunette's help to so much as stand up was quite another. The bath incident had been especially bad.

Elli's ordeal had come when Tim had proved that it would take more than a cask of wine to completely rob him of his keenly observant nature, by asking curiously why exactly she had stripped him completely naked to put him to bed, because he was fairly certain he had been wearing underwear last night.

All in all, with such a memory entrenched in her pretty little head of what came of drinking too much, Elli was not only determined never to do it, but deathly afraid of what might happen if she did.

And this man was blithely suggesting something stronger to calm her down!

"Yeah, okay," she agreed with an indifferent shrug. "Rusty Nail, and keep 'em coming."

--------------------------------------------------------

Sakura gazed deeply into the full-length mirror, an expression of intense concentration wrinkling her forehead as she drew the eyeliner pencil carefully across her lid with the slow, halting movements of a girl completely unused to such silliness.

Or at least, doing it well.

But this was a special night, and called for some special dollin' up!

"I wonder what my Pooky-bear wants to ask me," she pondered aloud on a blissful sigh, setting her eyeliner reverently down on the tray on the counter, and reaching for her brush.

As she drew the brush through her long golden locks, she hummed softly one of the most beautifully bittersweet songs in all of _Toast!_

"Don't you fret, M'sieur Ryan S., I'll gain an ounce at most. A little slice of toast shan't hurt my diet plan…"

Then, once her hair had been taken care of, hanging in a smooth mass over her shoulders, she set immediately about mussing it up again, taking a flying leap at her bed with a delighted squeal, pouncing on the framed photograph lying on her pillow.

That slightly oblong face, those noble chins, that gigantic mouth, that elegantly flamboyant fashion sense…he was perfect, that was all!

And such a perfect man needed a perfect present to celebrate their one-month dating anniversary. There wasn't much time; she'd meant to be on her way about fifteen minutes ago, instead of preening like an idiot. Nevertheless, Elli would come through her on this.

She always did.

Giving her photograph an exuberant, noisy kiss on the nose, she set it carefully back on her night table and bolted for the door.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"ELLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"

The slightly tipsy little nurse looked up at this frantic wail that sounded a little like her name from the right angle, and recoiled with a startled yelp at the sight of a blonde denim-clad comet hurtling across the bar towards her.

"Sakura!" she wailed as the farmer came to a screeching halt in front of her barstool. "You almost made me drop my…" She peered down at the vibrantly orangey liquid in her glass, and then looked up at Doug. "What did you call this again?"

"Harvey Wallbanger," he replied mildly.

"Yeah! My Harvey Wallbanger!" Elli continued, nothing daunted. Then she sighed and draped one arm over Sakura's shoulders. "Don't ever, ever try a Rusty Nail. It's horrible, horrible, horrible."

"Right," Sakura agreed nervously, putting Elli back up on her stool as the brunette began to slide off and into her arms. "Hey, Elli, I'm looking for a present for someone special, and—"

"Ooh, who is he?" Elli squealed with far less restraint than a typically alcohol-free bloodstream might have let her.

"Um, just a guy," Sakura replied quickly, eyes shifting nervously about. "Anyway, my cooking's still not great, and he's not really into…stuff that isn't food. I was thinking some Bodigizers might be nice, and then I could restock my supply at the same time, and I was wondering if you had any on you right now."

She fell silent, drawing back slightly at the delighted, devious glint that filled her friend's eyes.

"I can do way better than Bodigizers," Elli announced wickedly, reaching for the hem of her skirt and drawing it upwards. "Just take a look at this…"

-----------------------------------------------------

By this time, very little had changed in the lives of The Guys, who were all remaining quite firmly fixed in their pattern of moping, and then moping some more.

Although Rick had, around the ten-minute mark, attempted to rally his friends (and Kai) to find their women and stop this Sakura-obsession in the most direct way possible, the five young men, Rick included, had found themselves seemingly unable to move from the room.

"But it's so _comfy_ here!" Kai would whine later when asked.

"Yeah, for you," Rick would mutter resentfully, recalling the sight of Cliff, Gray, and Kai lounging comfortably on their respective beds, far happier about it in his memory than they had actually been, while he and the doctor were forced to endure uncomfortable chairs or the back pain inherent in two hours of continuous pacing.

Back in the present, Kai lifted his head and listened very carefully.

"Hey; what do you think that was?" he muttered to Gray.

Gray blinked.

"What do I think what was?"

"That noise. It sounded like either a ferret being used for dental floss, or Sakura getting really excited about something."

Cliff, overhearing, sat bolt upright.

"Sakura?" he echoed. "Sakura's here?"

Rick came to a dead halt in his rather half-hearted pacing, and wheeled about.

"What? She is?"

"Sounds like it," Kai said with a frown of concentration, listening closer.

The doctor, as well, was leaning down close to the floor, forehead wrinkling slightly.

"And is that..." He paused, his ear almost brushing the floorboards, and then sat bolt upright. "I think that's Elli!"

"Huh...yeah," Rick agreed, by this point also nearly doubled over to more easily listen to the floor. "Did she say she was going to be here tonight?"

"Not that I can recall," Tim replied, reflecting with a fond inward chuckle that maybe the Clinic's continuing excruciatingly slow period was good for something, if it was giving his assistant a chance to relax and let her hair down.

Although, it was a little odd; most of the time, she'd spend her free hours reading all his books in the recliner she thought he hadn't noticed her sneaking upstairs. What had convinced her to take up drinking so suddenly?

And at that moment, a strange, although hardly unprecedented, thing happened. As a shred of worry began to creep through the doctor's mind that the stress Elli had been under lately was leading her into potentially destructive hobbies, his mustache twitched slightly.

Then it twitched again.

And again, and again, until it had become nearly a constant motion. Then, as it sprouted out several more inches, Tim's eyes narrowed.

"Who is she here to see?" he demanded of no one in particular, already to his feet and bolting for the door.

Rick, bewildered, stared after him for a long moment, before turning slowly to the other three young men.

"Hey, you guys think we should go after him before he hurts someone?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Uh...what are they?" Sakura asked hesitantly, peering closely at the little bundles of rose-pink leaves clipped in several neat little rows to Elli's petticoat.

"Elli Leaves," that same Elli replied immediately. "Their _real_ name is The Elixer of Life, but no one else in town will call them that," she finished, pouting.

"Uh, kay," Sakura said after a long moment. "Do you have any Bodigizers? I really like those..."

"I just told you, these are better than Bodigizers! They're like a Bodigizer XL and a Turbojolt XL all rolled into a convenient leafy package!"

Sakura nodded, impressed.

"Hey, that's pretty good. You should use that in the marketing campaign."

"I am," Elli informed her seriously.

Meanwhile, the blonde's expression had grown disbelievingly joyous.

"Wait a second; they're like Bodigizers, but _better_?"

"Of course! They're Elli Leaves!"

Sakura stared adoringly at the leaves strapped to her friend's petticoat, and reached out a trembling hand to reverently touch such a wonder.

Closer...closer...until, as her fingers were about to brush the rosy pink leaves, she found herself groping rather foolishly at air, and Elli's startled, indignant shriek filled the room.

"Doctor! What are you doing?" Elli demanded with as much sternness as she could possibly muster while being thrown bodily over her boss's shoulder, wrists and ankles bound by either side of his mustache, staring dazedly at his backside.

Tim, who had entered the main room of the inn to the rather curious sight of Elli proudly holding up her skirt for a drooling little farmer girl to observe what lay beneath, as well as the aforementioned farmer girl very clearly intending to perform a few closer observations, glared at nothing in particular, as Elli was over his shoulder, and thus rather difficult to glare at.

"What am _I_ doing?" he repeated. "I'm not the one flashing strangers in public!"

"Um, actually..." Elli began dizzily before Sakura broke in.

"Geez, do you mind!" the blonde fumed. "We are _trying_ to perform a drug deal over here!"

"Sakura!" Elli exclaimed indignantly, tearing her eyes with some difficulty from the doctor's bottom. "The Elli Leaves are _not_ drugs! They're a completely natural supplement with miraculous effects on stamina and mood!"

"Stop trying to change the subject!" the doctor barked as he swung her back down and pinned her against the wall, hands at her shoulders. "We were talking about _your_ dalliance with the farmer!"

Elli blinked.

"We were?"

Sakura scratched her head.

"Oh, don't think I didn't notice you lifting up your skirt for her! Perhaps I haven't made my intentions clear enough. Well, consider this your notice: from here on out, if you feel the need to lift your skirts, it will be to me and only to me! And as for your doubtlessly _numerous_ other playmates," he added with a sinister chuckle, prompting Doug to direct a quick phone call to the Clinic to see if, by any chance, they were dealing with another Evil Clone situation, "either keep your wandering eye in check from here on out, or be prepared to see the objects of your affection disappear without a trace. Painfully."

The brunette stared, bewildered. Something was wrong. Maybe the mustache was responsible for this sudden burst of unexpected melodrama villainy, but oh, it _was_ awfully hard to think when the doctor used his Angry Voice. Not to mention, pinned her against things like this. And glared. His eyes looked fantastic all narrowed and evil. She wondered briefly how he might look holding a whip.

"I-I understand, Doctor," she murmured, eyes downcast. "Now, why don't we go home, before my wandering eye succumbs to further temptation?"

"Uh, hey, wait a second," Rick called hesitantly from the bottom of the stairs, where he and three other startled young men had been watching this exchange in uncharacteristic silence. "We kind of need him!"

Heedless of the chicken farmer's pleas, Elli caught Tim by the back of his labcoat and bolted for the door.

"I don't know what I did," Tim reflected aloud as he flapped merrily in the breeze behind her, "but I think I'd like to do it again."

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End Notes: Hee! I've been looking forward to this chapter. I don't know why, but the idea of Elli getting totally turned on by Evil!Doctor (or Dr. Evil...) is just incredibly funny to me. XD

And I know that I've just totally, totally revealed who Sakura's love interest is a bit early, but it was worth it to get to throw in the Elli Leaves thing.

Okay, so I'm a sad little Elli fangirl:P


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

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"This is terrible!" Popuri wailed, eyes filled with tears. "We forgot Elli! And now she's all alone in the Inn, scared and lonely and getting hit on by creepy old men!"

"What are you saying, exactly?" Mary, whose father was one of the only four men who typically visited the Inn for a drink every night, asked suspiciously.

"She's going to kill me," Karen sighed, shaking her head sadly. "She whined and bitched and complained about having another meeting at all, and the rest of us weren't even there to _have_ it."

"Maybe someone should go check on her," Mary suggested hopefully. "I'll volunteer!"

The blonde considered this.

"Okay, go ahead. We'll look after things here. But when you find her," Karen continued, fixing Mary with a very serious gaze, "make sure you both get back here, fast."

"Sure," Mary chirped happily, all but skipping away from the pond.

"So, did you girls actually need something, or did you only summon me to relate absurd suspicions?" the Harvest Goddess asked snippily.

"Oh, we're done; you can go now," Popuri replied cheerfully.

Karen winced and inched away from her friend, as though expecting a bolt of lightning at any moment.

"Oh! Can I?" the Harvest Goddess gasped sarcastically.

"Well, sure," Ann replied, beamingly missing the point. "We don't need you anymore, so you can go whenever you want. Say hi to the Kappa for us, okay?"

Karen, by this point, was huddling in a terrified little ball under a tree, as she had, right from the first time she had successfully snuck into a bar, been far more interested in beer than books, and had thus never learned much of lightning and its tendencies.

"If she had a farm," the Goddess muttered, glaring at Ann, "I would curse all her cattle but good."

With that, she disappeared in a brilliant flash, leaving behind three very relieved young ladies.

Their relief, however, was to be short-lived.

"Hey, guys! What are you all doing here?" a voice called cheerfully from the edge of the clearing.

Ann and Karen turned. Popuri continued to decorate her hair with flowers.

There, at the edge of the path leading away from the pond, stood Sakura, in all her farmer-ey glory.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Tell me why we're doing this again?" Gray requested grumpily as he hurried after the other three boys along the road leading out of town and down into the woods.

"She took our jobs!" Cliff exclaimed unintelligibly.

Rick winced, before glaring at the other long-haired boy.

"Will you quit saying that! No one took your job! You don't even _have_ a job!"

"Well, not any more," Kai snickered. "Sakura took it!"

"Durkr drbs!"

"Cliff, if you don't cut it out, we're gonna ditch you in the mountains," Gray warned.

Cliff grinned.

"Sorry. It just felt right, you know?"

"No," Kai, Rick, and Gray replied flatly as one.

"And by the way," Gray added sulkily, "no one answered my question."

"Are you serious?" Rick demanded, laughing at the sheer absurdity. "As we speak, we each have a one-in-five chance of losing our girlfriends to Sakura! That's twenty percent!"

"Yeah, thanks, man, but I passed third grade math," Kai snickered.

"Actually, it's twenty-five percent," Gray pointed out.

Kai blinked, then frowned.

"No, I'm pretty sure that one out of five is twenty percent."

Gray rolled his eyes beneath his hat.

"Yeah, but there are only four girls vying for Sakura's attention, now that the doctor dragged Elli away like that."

"Oh, geez, he's right!" Kai wailed. "Lucky bastard!"

"Luck had nothing to do with it, Kai," Rick said grimly, clapping the other boy on the shoulder, regardless of how utterly bizarre this simple gesture might have seemed merely a season ago. "The doctor did what the rest of us weren't man enough to do: he reclaimed his woman by force."

"And I guess that's what we're gonna do, huh?" Gray asked sarcastically.

Cliff scratched his head.

"I don't think I _have_ a woman. Or a job."

"Well, I don 't know about you, Gray," Rick called to the behatted boy, both arriving at a mutual agreement to ignore Cliff, "but I'm going to Harvest Goddess Pond so I can tear that farming wench limb from limb for seducing the affections of MY girlfriend away from me. Oh, just wait, Sakura. Your time is coming. Your blood will flow like water, staining the land for generations to come!"

"Was he always like this?" Cliff muttered to Kai as Rick went off into a laugh of gleeful evil.

Kai frowned.

"Not really, you know. He and Karen have always just been pals. Everyone could see that they were crazy about each other, but neither of them would make the first move because I guess they were happy as friends. I guess he's always been nuts about me dating his sister, but I think that's only because I'm dating a lot of other girls too, and he's worried that I'm cheating on her because she never bothered to tell him that we're non-exclusive. And I'm pretty sure brutal dismemberment never entered the picture before, even with me."

Cliff nodded sagely.

"Well, Sakura _did _take our jobs."

Kai patted Cliff on the back.

"Yeah, that's right, man." Then he grinned. "Hey, wait a second. You know that the girls Sakura doesn't pick are gonna be devastated, right? They're gonna need a shoulder to cry on. And I've got two right here!"

"Kai, will you try to focus, please?" Rick requested tersely. "Brutal violence! Sakura will be vanquished, and none of us will have to fall back on mail-order brides!"

"Hey, man, make love, not war," Kai pleaded, before coming to a halt and posing sexily.

Gray uttered a long, despairing groan.

"It's at times like these that I wish the on-call doctor the night I was born had been really clumsy and dropped me out a window or something..."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Francis L. Pheberton, more commonly known to the denizens of Mineral Town as simply The Gourmet, a legend among men whose tastes were law in the culinary world and whose favour was a glowing badge of honour to any chef, however prestigious his schooling and position, walked jauntily along the road out of town and south to Super-Happy Amazing Funshiney Rainbow Sparkle Farm.

His very being was filled with joy and sublime gladness of spirit, which was no small feat, as there was a great deal of his being around to _be_ filled. Nevertheless, the thought of that special lady through whose farm he was currently sauntering, his Delicate Pastry of Bliss, his Sakura, accomplished it easily, and as he passed the chicken coop, he began to whistle a happy tune.

Something about toast. Strange, how he'd had all these toast-related songs stuck in his head since he'd first met her.

Speaking of toast, he sure could do with a slice.

But that could wait.

For now, a goddess awaited.

--------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately for the lovely and talented Mr. Pheberton, it was not a goddess, but a brawl that awaited him at Harvest Goddess Pond.

Well, technically, there was a Goddess there as well, hence the _Harvest Goddess_ bit of the title, but she was, at that point, hiding determinedly beneath the surface of the _Pond_ bit.

The rather inaptly named goddess that Mr. Pheberton referred to awaited as well, but was at that moment so engrossed in trying to break up the fight, or at least find out what the heck it was about in the first place so she could more effectively spur it on, that she likely would have paid him little attention.

When Karen, Ann, and Popuri had finally recovered powers of motion and speech from the shock of having their presumed rival show up at the location that they had been expecting her for the past hour and rushed towards her, all brimming with frantic and angry questions, it had been just in time to provide Cliff, Gray, Kai, and Rick with the sight of a group of females flocking around the hated little female that had stolen their girlfriends or, as Cliff continued to declare cryptically, "took our jobs!"

"We're too late," Kai declared, watching in awe as the three young ladies rapidly assaulted the fourth.

"Like Hell we are," Rick snarled, mustache twitching frantically as he lunged at the gaggle of girls.

"Someone's gonna get sued," Gray warned with the air of knowing that he would be ignored – which, of course, he was.

"Karen!" Rick was meanwhile shouting, grabbing his maybe-girlfriend firmly by the shoulder and dragging her back from the blonde. "What are you doing? _I'm_ the only one you yell at like that!"

"Yeah, well, tell that to your new _girlfriend_," she shot back, shrugging roughly out of his grip and wheeling furiously to face him.

Popuri's expression grew horrified, and she glared daggers at Kai.

"What! You knew that Rick was dating Sakura, and you were still at her all the time! You're as bad as he is, Kai! You just can't leave other people's girlfriends alone!"

Kai crossed his arms defensively.

"Oh, yeah, great. So, you're allowed to flirt with her all the time, but you get mad at me for doing it?" he demanded hotly, conveniently forgetting that neither of them had ever actually done so.

"Do you think any of them care that they all stopped making any sense about two minutes ago?" Cliff muttered to Gray.

Gray snorted.

"Try two seasons ago." Then he frowned. "Hey, where's Mary?"

"She went to find Elli," Ann replied from the other side of Cliff.

Gray stared at her oddly, and she gave a jaunty little wave in reply. Then he gave his head a quick shake to clear it.

"Look, whatever. I'm going to find Mary. You two...try to make sure they don't kill each other too badly."

With that, he was gone, leaving Ann and Cliff to exchange bewildered looks.

"Don't kill each other too badly?" Ann finally repeated. "Did that make sense?"

Cliff shook his head sadly.

"Nothing makes sense anymore," he sighed brokenly.

Ann sent him a huge, faintly blushing smile.

"Wow, the girls were right: you're really kind of cute when you're angsting!"

Cliff grew bright red, looking distinctly like a very small animal staring down an active volcano – or anything else staring down an active volcano, for that matter – and finally managed a goofy little smile.

"Thanks, Ann." He stared shyly down at his fingers for a long moment, fidgeting slightly and bouncing his weight from foot to foot. Finally, he smiled back at her again. "You know, I think any man should be honoured to go on a jealous rampage over you."

"Really?" Ann said with a huge, nervous smile, rubbing the back of her head reflexively. "That's sweet, Cliff. You, too. But, uh, girls. Not guys."

"Nah, I'd be a little scared if a guy was going crazy over me," Cliff laughed, slightly hysterical with nervousness.

Then, as they looked up at what had previously been two bickering couples and one bewildered little agriculturist, now a dust cloud with the occasional limb shooting out of it and profanities of all colourful varieties drifting therefrom, Ann made a face.

"You think we should do something about this?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mary!" Gray called when he caught sight, through the swiftly falling darkness, of a small, dark-haired shape knocking frantically at the door to the Clinic.

Mary turned and squinted in his direction.

"Gray!" she yelped joyfully, trotting towards him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he assured her. "Look, Ann and Cliff said you were looking for Elli, and I thought someone should probably tell you that we saw the doctor drag her back to the Clinic earlier today."

Mary looked delighted.

"Really? That's great!"

Gray looked confused.

"Uh…why?"

"Because, Gray, if the doctor is dragging Elli off to secluded places, it means he wasn't Sakura's Number 1! Oh, she must be so relieved! I'm sure, with Elli keeping him company, he'll forget all about his unrequited love for Sakura in no time! I mean, we knew it _probably_ wasn't _any_ of you, because you were all having that We Love Sakura meeting upstairs, and it's hard to have a meeting about her and have a meeting _with _her at the same time, but you never know."

Gray stared, quite stunned.

"Uh, Mary? Are you sure you're okay? Sakura's rejection didn't, like, drive you insane with grief or something, did it?"

"Why would I care if Sakura rejected the doctor or not?" Mary scoffed. "I'm a lot more concerned with what she thinks of you."

"Me?" Gray echoed, horrified. "I haven't liked her since she came in and started flirting with my grandpa! She offered him favours in return for tool upgrades, and game up the next day with noise-makers and party hats."

Mary shook her head, looking distinctly annoyed.

"She really takes her puns too far sometimes."

"Yeah, no kidding," Grey snorted in agreement, then froze. "Wait a second; weren't you just knocking at the clinic? And no one answered! Oh, my God! The guys were right! Sakura has a plot to make sure every man in town dies alone, and when the doctor tried to take back his woman, she sent minions to stop it from happening! Who knows where they could be right now? We've got to get the others!"

"Gray, calm down!" Mary entreated, catching his arm as he started to bolt down the street. "Look; the lights are on upstairs. That means they're inside."

Gray scratched his hat.

"But… what are they doing in there?"

Mary giggled, cheeks growing beautifully sweet pink.

"Oh, I don't know. But I'm sure they're keeping busy."

"I gotcha," Gray said with a grin.

------------------------------------------------

"Alright, you sexy, sexy evil fiend," Elli said breathlessly, cheeks brightly pink and hands bound tightly above her head. "You have me bound, naked, and helpless at your mercy. Do with me what you will."

The doctor scratched his head as he peered down at the girl bound by wrists and ankles to his bed.

"Uh, you're not naked," he pointed out after a long moment of consideration.

"Well, we'll just have to fix that, now won't we?" she said through gritted teeth, her breathless expectation thinly disguised by noble self-sacrifice beginning to wilt a bit. Only for a moment, though. "Go ahead and rip it; I have six dresses just like this."

The doctor's grin stretched beyond the boundaries of a normal human face as he leaned over her and took firm hold of the collar of her dress.

"Yes, ma'am."

--------------------------------------------------

"I bet they're working on some ground-breaking new medication in there, concentrating so hard they didn't even hear the bell," Gray continued, shaking his head. "Geez, what a pair of workaholics! Do they ever take a break, or just go at it all the time?"

"R-right," Mary agreed hesitantly, cheeks growing brighter. "Listen, Gray, now that we know the doctor and Elli are okay, do we really have to go back to the pond?"

Gray frowned.

"I guess not, but do you have some other idea?"

"Well, your room at the Inn _is_ completely empty right now…"

"Hey, yeah! You have to come pick up your books anyway."

"It'll be just you, me, and a pile of books. And we can ignore the books," she added with an impish little wink.

Gray took some time processing this, before flashing her the second grin in the nearby vicinity in the past ten minutes to challenge the capabilities of the average human face.

"Cool."

----------------------------------------------------------

End Notes: Okay, Plan B: two more chapters. Well, one more chapter after this. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but it got waaaaaaaaaaay too long, so it is now two. Booya. Anyway, this was a sort of meandering, mostly-silly-dialogue chapter...which means it should fit in pretty well with the rest of the story. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Oh, yes; and I don't know what was up with Cliff, either. Let's just say that too much South Park equals a silly (well, sillier) fanfic author.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

-----------------------------------------------------

When the Gourmet, at long last, wandered into the clearing to find his sweet Sakura, his goddess, engaged in a violent disagreement, he found himself, for once, at a loss for the elegant and eloquent words that defined a man of the world such as he.

Sakura, luckily, was able to talk quite enough for the both of them, and as though sensing his presence, she froze, ears pricking up, and then launched herself at him like a hyperactive kitten.

"Snuggle-Pumpkin!" she shrieked in joy that quickly turned to dismay as she bounced off his spherical self and into the fray again.

"Alright, ENOUGH!" the Gourmet bellowed, summoning up all the lung power and diaphragmatic support that had been his throughout the opera career that had ended when he had realized his true calling.

His diaphragmatic support did not disappoint. Four fist-fighting young adults, as well as the two standing off to the side and happily munching popcorn whilst taking bets on who would come out unharmed, came to a dead halt and stared in fear at the furious man.

Anger radiating from every pore, he stalked toward the jumble of combatants and very gently hauled Sakura to her feet.

"Are you alright, my delicate pastry of bliss?" he asked, tenderly brushing some hair from her eyes.

"I'm okay, Snuggle-Pumpkin," she assured him, snuggling happily against his shoulder – so nice and pillowy! "I missed you."

"I missed you too, darlingest. I was in the middle of a grand banquet in honour of the opening of a new and ground-breaking restaurant by one of the great names in international cookery, and I simply couldn't stand it any more. After three days of no appetite, I just had to return to see how my sweet little sugar-cookie was faring in my absence."

"Lonely," she pouted, eyes huge and appealing.

"I hope it won't be so long next time."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA!" exclaimed Karen, who had finally recovered her powers of speech. "HE'S your boyfriend?"

"Well, yeah," Sakura giggled, blushing pinkly. "At least, I think so. You're my boyfriend, right?"

The Gourmet gave a jolly laugh.

"I had certainly better be!"

"My one and only," the blonde assured him with a roguish grin, followed by a dreamy sigh.

Karen, meanwhile, continued to sputter.

"But...but...but HOW?"

"We met at the cooking competition," Sakura confided, for some reason pulling a big block of chocolate and a bottle of wine, which Karen promptly confiscated to deal with her shattered nerves. "Our eyes met over the judging table. I smiled. He ate cookies. Then he smiled. There were cookie crumbs in his teeth. And I knew that he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

"If I didn't already hate cookies, I would now," Karen groused.

"So...uh...you _weren't_ after Karen?" Rick surmised as he climbed off of Kai and absently dragged the other boy to his feet.

Sakura stared blankly.

"What kind of idiot would think that?"

"Yeah, Rick," Kai agreed, glaring daggers. "What kind of idiot?"

"It's not my fault!" Rick protested. "It's the mustache! It makes me do weird things! Just ask the doctor! Do you _really_ think he would've dragged Elli off to have his evil way with her if it weren't for that mustache?" He paused, expectant look wilting as everyone fixed him with disbelieving looks, even the Gourmet, who very likely knew nothing of either one. Hastening to change the subject, Rick turned to Sakura. "So, you really weren't after the girls, huh?"

Sakura shook her head, then winked at Karen, Popuri, and Ann in turn.

"No offense, ladies. You're all smokin' hot, but there's just no one to compare with my pookie."

"O-kay! That's good enough for me, and more than I ever needed to know," Rick declared. "Let's go, Karen. Maybe we can still catch the tail end of Happy Hour."

""But…but…_how_?" Karen demanded, seeming near tears. "She's cute, and young, and perfect in every way, and he's—"

"He's rich, and respected, and kind, and sweet, and considerate, and chivalrous," Sakura finished airily.

"But…but he's _fat_!" 

Sakura shook her head and sighed, arms folded.

"Come on, Karen, what kind of irredeemably shallow, useless idiot thinks that being overweight removes every scrap of worth a person would otherwise have?"

"Shut up!" Karen barked. "I am not shallow! Now Rick, take off those glasses before I break up with you for being too nerdy and seek out someone worthy of my perfection and Goddessness, because despite my general hopelessness at doing anything useful, I am hot, which is all that matters!" Then, as one regaining sanity very suddenly, she gave a start. "Whoa! I think I was channeling my fanboys. Rick, if that ever happens again, promise you'll drown me or something."

"What!" Rick exclaimed. "No! I'd rather have you stupid than not at all, Karen."

"Aw, that's sweet," she said with a dopey smile. "I think..." Then she turned to Sakura. "But seriously, what's going on? This is some kind of joke, right? Please tell me you're planning to murder him on your wedding night and make off with his fortune, or something. Being a cold-blooded killer is one thing, as long as you only cold-bloodedly kill ugly people, but having bad taste in men? Inexcusable! Now, don't make me go write a fanfic in which you dump him for traits he doesn't actually have, because I deem him unworthy of you!"

"Karen," Rick called nervously through gritted teeth. "You're channeling again…"

Coming once more out of her trance, she wheeled furiously on Rick.

"You were supposed to drown me next time that happened!"

He made an exasperated noise.

"I already told you, no way."

"Rick, I would rather die than live without a brain!"

"But it's not you talking! It's a temporary lapse! You're going to throw your whole life away for a temporary lapse?"

"I can feel it happening again, Rick," Karen said brokenly, face in her hands. "I can feel myself longing to ask Sakura what the hell she sees in him, even though they're clearly really happy and sickeningly in love."

"Well, then, I'll tell you," Sakura said, grinning as she put her arm around Karen's shoulders. "Have you seen the size of his mouth? Just think of the _tongue_ he must have. And by the way," she added, bright red, "he _does_ know how to use it. He's a talented man."

"Not so very," the Gourmet chuckled. "I just know what my favourite dish likes."

"Yeah, I'm scarred for life," Ann commented casually to Cliff.

"Me, too," Cliff agreed sadly.

"Wanna go see if the doctor's special medicine will inflict some well-timed amnesia?"

Cliff pondered this, his expression anxious

"Will we still remember each other?"

"Cliff, we live in the same building," Ann reminded him with a giggle. "I think we'll work something out."

Nodding thoughtfully, he followed the redhead from the clearing.

Kai turned to Popuri.

"Yeah, I think they've got the right idea. Wanna go have some snow cones forget any of this ever happened?"

Karen watched thoughtfully as the pair scurried away. Then she turned to Rick.

"What were you saying about the tail end of Happy Hour?"

"I don't think so, Karen," Rick told her, eyes narrowed and fixed piercingly on the little blonde as his mustache shot out several feet at either side, and twisted and curled through the air. "After that display of horror at meeting Sakura's boyfriend, that show of unfairly and cattily picking out his every fault, I'm not leaving here until I know for sure that there's no danger of the hoe-happy succubus growing tired of her Snuggle-Pumpkin and moving on to you."

Karen sighed heavily.

"I don't suppose you're thinking of getting her to Pinky-Swear."

"I was thinking something a little more...permanent," he replied, his mustache winding around a thick branch of a nearby tree and wrenching it free."

"Have I mentioned that I hate my life?" Karen asked the Gourmet casually.

"W-what sort of town is this!" the large man demanded as Rick's mustache brandished the tree branch like a weapon.

"Believe me, you're not the only one to ask that recently," Karen replied flatly as Sakura, recognizing the maniacal glint in the eye that the mustache didn't have, drew her sickle from hammerspace and assumed a battle position.

"YOU turned her against me!" Rick howled cryptically, launching himself at Sakura, aiming blow after cruel blow at her pretty golden head, all of which were dodged easily by her superhuman grace and speed...or at least, by her supernatural dumb luck as she stumbled about, swinging her sickle blindly at her assailant.

"Uh, I'm not against you, Rick," Karen called, annoyed, and all the more so as she was entirely ignored by the combatants.

"Your anger management issues and your silly mustache have done that already," Sakura spat back at the sandy-haired young man. _I've got a bad feeling about this_, she thought resignedly.

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER FROM ME!" Rick bellowed with all the anger and rage that the capslock key could muster.

"Hello! Rick! Still right here! Not going anywhere!" Karen tried to interject, once again to be entirely ignored.

"Your paranoia and your faulty logic have already done that...already. Y-y'know, along with the anger management issues and the mustache," Sakura said, faltering a little towards the end as her spiffy dialogue began to wilt a little around the edges and sound merely silly. It wasn't fair; Ewan McGregor could have made it sound cool!

"Oh, someone is going to get hurt," the Gourmet fretted.

"Don't worry about it," Karen said flatly. "She took him with no problem last time."

"Ow!" Sakura was meanwhile yelping in pain as the branch connected heavily with her knee.

"Alright, I've seen enough," Mr. Pheberton announced decisively. "Sakura, I've decided that I'm going to take you away from this awful place."

Sakura froze in the act of clutching her sore leg, and blushed deeply.

"T-take me away? Does that mean...get married?"

"Of course," he chuckled. "A man of my position, and a lady of your beauty, grace, and honour, living in sin?"

"The mental images hurt," Karen whimpered.

"If you will agree to it, my sweet little dumpling, I would like to be married as soon as possible."

"Wow," Sakura laughed sheepishly, withdrawing a slightly battered Blue Feather from her backpack. "That kind of makes my present a moot point."

"Then let us go celebrate, my love. To the Beach House!"

"The Beach House!" she repeated jubilantly, and they sauntered off together arm in arm.

Karen shot Rick a distrustful glare.

"What, you're not going to chase them down and pound her to death?"

Rick laughed.

"Didn't you hear him, Karen? He's taking her away from all this. That means she's leaving Mineral Town, and our relationship is safe from outward negative influence! Geez, you need to work on your listening skills."

"And that's it?" she asked flatly. Something about this just seemed too easy...

"Well, yeah. Did you think I was going to chase her down to the ends of the earth or something, pelt her with chickens until she swore in blood to leave you alone?" he scoffed. "Come on; I'm not psycho."

"That's a relief, anyway," she sighed, conveniently forgetting the multiple seasons she had spent in stalking a totally unaware young lady in the suspicion that she was after the bespectacled young man before her. "So, now what?"

His reddened slightly.

"W-well, now that everyone's gone, I have something I kind of wanted to ask before."

She raised an eyebrow. _If this story ends with a double-wedding, I'm going to shoot the author._

"Yeah?" she prompted, hoping to sway his impressionable male mind against the proposal that she feared. Not that the idea of embarking upon married life was unpleasant, but after al this, her nerves were about shot, and she was gloomily certain that they'd snap completely and result in the Bridezilla to end all Bridezillas if she were forced to plan a wedding in this state.

"Will you...join me for a drink?" he finally finished, looking shyly at the ground and scuffing the toe of his boot in the dirt. "We missed Happy Hour, so I'll buy tonight."

Karen's eyes grew misty, and her expression morphed into a dopey, sentimental smile.

"Oh, Rick, I thought you'd never ask. Again."

----------------------------------------------------------------

And with that, a gripping tale of adventure, romance, cow-milking, and head trauma drew to a close. Life within the sleepy little village of Mineral Town returned to as normal as ere it had been in the past. The cows began once again to have prophetic dreams of Boats and Trucks, birds became once again alternately stuck in chimneys and used as lethal weapons, and farms exploded.

This, of course, all existed only in the bestselling novel that Mary adapted from the diaries that Sakura found under her mattress while packing to accompany her Snuggle-Pumpkin to his urban life. These diaries, the sordid tale of the Farmer of Purest Evil of days long past, captivated Mary's interest immediately, and every second that was not spent with Gray was spent slaving over her book. A labour of love, however, it won the hearts of the publishers as wholly as its author won the blacksmith's grandson's. Er, heart, that is. The royalties, Anna pointed out delightedly, could buy an absolutely beautiful wedding. Whether or not young Mary decided to take her mother's advice is unknown; all that is certain is that she sure is cute when she blushes.

But not everyone had time to indulge in _scribbling_, as Kai called it, playfully disdainful. Between the two of them, Sakura and her Gourmet had about eaten the beach house out of business. Apparently, in the city, celebrating was considered something best done with a disgusting level of excess. Or, maybe farming, ranching, and brawling just worked up a heck of an appetite. Either way, with every scrap of food gone from the Beach House, Popuri suggested that Kai take this opportunity to re-imagine the menu. Maybe, she said excitedly, they could expand their repertoire to more than four items! This had prompted Kai to request snippily that Popuri stop being a smart-ass, which had earned him a lot of confused blinking on the pretty pink-haired girl's part, as she had, in fact, been completely in earnest.

Certain other eating establishments in the area were wont to note, carefully loud enough for Kai and his newfound collaborator to hear, that they would give their spleen's left eye tooth – or something – for kind of time it would take to reinvent the menu. Although, Ann would add airily, she supposed it must be a lot harder when there were more than four things on the menu _to_ reinvent. This would lead to Kai pouting a whole lot, until Popuri could cheer him up with stories of all the times Karen had yelled at Rick that day, but Ann's attention would, by this time, be elsewhere. Specifically, on the young man now firmly instated as a full-time assistant at Duke's Winery, one of the Inn's top supplier. The Inn's _only_ supplier, as a town the size of Mineral Town was unlikely to have more than one Winery, as amusing as the rivalry might have been for the privilege of intoxicating all the locals. At any rate, with Cliff working right next door, and living in the same building, Ann found lots and lots of time to get to know him, and eventually, as her father stated, shaking in embarrassment and horror at the scene he had witnessed upon incautiously walking into Ann's room without knocking, lots of time to get to _know_ him, in the Biblical sense. That had not been a terribly good day for Doug, although presumably it had been quite a fantastic day for Cliff and Ann.

Incidentally, it had also been an extraordinarily good day for the young couple at the Clinic, too, as it had finally occurred to them that really, they could easily make the peeping hole obselete by simply sharing a room. Then they could see all they liked, whenever they liked, without the back and neck pain and eye strain of peeking through a tiny hole in the plaster. It was, Elli told Karen, who really wished she hadn't, ecstatically the next day, just like a really _big_ peeping hole, all the time! With touching privileges, Tim was, unbeknownst to her, meanwhile telling Carter in a hushed, awed voice. These two, Carter sighed as Tim floated back to the Clinic on the fluffy pink cloud that was the knowledge that he was to "get some" tonight, just didn't get the point of being married.

Karen and Rick were faring just as well in their own particular brand of romance, which tended to feature bitter arguments for about the five minutes that the two could keep their hands off of one another. This had led them to stop meeting at the bench outside the Supermarket, as they had been repeatedly fined by Harris for indecent public exposure. This had disappointed Elli greatly, as she had been looking to the amorous young couple on the street bench for ideas on what exciting new positions to try next, which had led Rick, when it got back around to him, to remark that she was "sick". Nevertheless, it was just as good, taking their arguments to Goddess Pond, although the strange camera flashes that tended to come from the water whenever they _really_ got going were a little unnerving.

As for the Harvest Goddess, she assembled a scrap book of photos of the various young couples doing their various young couples things, which she had entitled "Mineral Town Gets Freaky", and sold on the internet for a fairly hefty profit.

Meanwhile, the girls continued to receive postcards from all over the world, "from your bestest buddy, Sakura", detailing all the wondrous adventures she was having touring with her Snuggle-Pumpkin, learning the ropes of the culinary world, putting her insanely high metabolism to the test amid her frantic workout sessions. Wink-wink, she had added, providing all five girls with mental images they _so_ didn't need.

Yes, it seemed that life in Mineral Town had returned to normal. And then, one night, while preparing to hop into bed, Thomas received a telephone call that sent a shiver down his spine:

"Yeah, hi; my name's Gary – Gary Stu. I'm six-foot-three, slim-yet-muscular build, long, thick red hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and a hell of a way with women. And men, for that matter. Anyway, I'm calling about your ad in County Real Estate Weekly; the one for the farm..."

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End Notes: Aaaaaaaaand, that's a wrap. I know, it didn't really have an ending, but at least it's over, right? I figure someone out there's gotta be cheering. XD


End file.
